Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

British Transport Commission Bill

Mr. Kershaw: I beg to present to this House a Petition on behalf of more than 200 of my constituents of the parish of Brookthorpe with Whaddon who are or are likely to be affected by the proposal in the British Transport Commission Bill, which is before this House at the present time, for the establishment of a marshalling yard on the east side of the railway near to Gloucester. This Petition is signed by more than 200 of the parish who represent some 95 per cent. of those people who will be affected. Their Petition is that the marshalling yard should be not on the east side but the west side of the railway line where land is available, which is not valuable agricultural land, as it is on the east side, and which is largely held by the Air Ministry and is convenient and which it is possible for the British Transport Commission to use, instead of the valuable agricultural land at Whaddon. The Petition says:
And your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will not pass that Dart of the Bill which would allow a marshalling yard to be constructed in Brookthorpe with Whaddon.
And Your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAPAN (BRITISH SUBJECTS' CLAIMS)

Mr. Dempsey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how soon he expects to reach agreement with Japan, in connection with the claims for losses suffered by Britons during the Sino-Japanese war.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Robert Allan): Negotiations are still going on. Progress has been made and we hope that we are near a settlement.

Mr. Dempsey: Would the Joint Undersecretary of State bear in mind that one of my constituents has waited so long for this restitution that now she is an old-age pensioner? In view of the fact that such folk do not qualify for retirement pension in this country, will he expedite these proceedings to ensure that they do have justice at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Allan: Yes, I am aware that this has taken a long time. We are in constant touch with the Japanese authorities both here and in Tokyo, and we are prepared to make further representations at a high level.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Nazi War Crimes (Documents)

Dr. A. Thompson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will instruct his representative in the United Nations General Assembly to propose that the Assembly refers to it's International Law Commission the question of the custody of documents relating to Nazi war crimes, with instructions to prepare a draft international agreement for the lodging of all such available documents with, and their preservation by, the United Nations, together with suitable regulations for permitting access to such documents.

Mr. R. Allan: This is not a matter for the International Law Commission, which is concerned with the codification and the development of international law


and not with making arrangements of the kind proposed for the custody of documents.

Dr. Thompson: Nevertheless, will the Joint Under-Secretary of State give an assurance that he will approach the United Nations with a view to securing some kind of custody of these documents in order to lift the issue of Nazi war crimes out of the day-to-day diplomatic wrangle between East and West and to avoid the situation whereby Nazi crimes are forgotten or remembered according to the expediences of the cold war? Will he give us an assurance that we can have an impartial body for the custody of these documents so that they may be available to genuine scholars and for the ascertainment of the technical incidence of guilt in cases to which reference is made?

Mr. Allan: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is quite aware of the facts. His Question refers to war crimes and records. The records of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal covering the trials of the major German war criminals are already deposited with the International Court of Justice at The Hague and are available for inspection. Our copies of the proceedings have been deposited at the Public Record Office where they are available to the public. In the case of minor war criminals, the records of many of these have already been published in the War Crimes Trials series.

Mr. J. Hynd: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us, for the record, whether the archives referred to in this Question do in fact deal with war crimes or whether they are just lists of party members?

Mr. Allan: No. In this Question reference is made to war crimes and my Answer dealt with war crimes and war criminals.

Peace Treaty

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he expects to be able to announce a date for the conference to draw up a peace treaty to end the war which started in 1939.

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. John Profumo): I cannot say. The answer will depend in the first place on the progress of our forthcoming

negotiations with the Soviet Government. But I should add that so far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned the formal state of war with Germany came to an end in 1951 and no peace treaty is required in order to confirm this.

Mr. Hynd: Do the Government realise that during this long delay in negotiating a peace treaty, festering sores are developing, such as the question of the Oder-Neisse line, which should be dealt with before they cause further trouble?

Mr. Profumo: None of these matters can be finally dealt with until there is a peace treaty, and that must depend on having a unified Germany.

Mr. G. Jeger: If there is to be discussion on a peace treaty, will the right hon. Gentleman recall that the war started in 1939, and that the Soviet Union at that time was not our ally but the ally of Hitlerite Germany? For the Soviet Union the war did not start until 1941.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the dangers to peace resulting from continuing conflicting claims regarding the eastern frontiers of Germany, what steps he is taking to secure an early peace settlement that will include the retention of the Sudetenland within Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Profumo: A final peace settlement cannot be concluded until it can be freely negotiated by a Government representing the whole of Germany. Meanwhile, Her Majesty's Government's view is that no consideration should be given at a peace settlement to any changes in Germany's frontier with Czechoslovakia effected in 1938 or subsequently.

Mr. Allaun: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, but may I ask whether he has seen the recent demands by Herr Seebohm, a Federal Minister, and others, for the return to Germany of Czech Sudetenland, and also that German Czechs should stir up trouble? This is closely similar to demands which Hitler made before the war. Would the right hon. Gentleman indicate his disapproval of such demands?

Mr. Profumo: Such statements do not accord with what I understand to be the view of the Federal Government. I have made clear what Her Majesty's Government's views are.

Mr. Rankin: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell the House exactly what he means by the use of the phrase "a unified Germany"? Do the Government consider that it covers the "lost" territories now under Polish control?

Mr. Profumo: I do not think I can add to what I have said in my Answer. If the hon. Gentleman will look at it he will find it quite clear.

European Economic Community and European Free Trade Association

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action he has now taken to remove the misunderstandings of the German Federal Government regarding the policy of Her Majesty's Government to aspects of European Economic Community political policy; and what further conversations have been or will be held between these governments in respect of the relationship between the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation and the European Free Trade Association.

Mr. Profumo: Her Majesty's Ambassador in Bonn saw Herr von Brentano on 2nd April and, on my right hon. and learned Friend's instructions, drew attention to the statement which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made to the House on the previous day. I hope that this statement has cleared up any misunderstandings in the Federal Republic and elsewhere which may have been caused by the Press reports of my right hon. Friend's talks in Washington. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply which my hon. Friend gave on 11th April to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw).

Mr. Sorensen: May I ask the Minister whether a public statement is likely to be made in order to remove misunderstandings on this matter, misunderstandings that have not been confined to the German Federal Government?

Mr. Profumo: There will be no further public statement than that which my right hon. Friend made to the House.

Fighter-Bomber Aircraft

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if it remains Her Majesty's Government's policy to

prohibit the possession by Germany of a strategic air force.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that the 660 supersonic fighter-bomber aircraft which it is proposed to procure for the German air force are capable of being equipped to deliver missiles against strategic targets within the territories of neighbouring countries, he will call for a further revision of the Brussels Treaty to prevent any such development.

Mr. R. Allan: As I said last week these are tactical aircraft. They are required by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation plans for the common defence. These plans and N.A.T.O. force requirements do not call for the possession by Germany of a strategic air force. And, like all other German operational forces, these aircraft will be under N.A.T.O. control.

Mr. Swingler: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that he is the only person who has commented on this matter who thinks that they are for tactical use? Is he aware that all the air correspondents of the Press who have commented on the 660 supersonic fighter-bombers have said that they are capable of long-range use and therefore they constitute the nucleus of a strategic air force? Is it not simply quibbling to say that they are for tactical use?

Mr. Allan: It is not a quibble at all. These aircraft have a range of about one-third of our V-bomber force, and they could not attack targets in Soviet territory.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Does the hon. Gentleman disagree with the view of the Secretary of State for War, that it is the target which determines whether the use of a weapon is for tactical or strategical purposes? The right hon. Gentleman made that view clear in discussing the Army Estimates last year. Does not the hon. Gentleman take into account also the danger which is being created by the provocative speeches of responsible Ministers in the Bonn Government about the reunification of Germany, if necessary by the use of force? I am talking about people like Seebohm and Oberländer. Does he not have misgivings about putting into the hands of the Germans at this time what in fact


appears to every expert committee to be a highly mobile striking force capable of attacking strategic targets deep inside neighbouring countries?

Mr. Allan: A great deal of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is not for me in any event, but if, unhappily, these aircraft were used, they would be used in accordance with SACEUR's tactical plans and no other.

DISARMAMENT

Dr. A. Thompson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what proposals the British representative on the Ten-Power Disarmament Committee has made concerning force levels for States other than the United States of America and Russia in stages I and II of the Western disarmament plan.

Mr. Profumo: Stage I of the Western plan proposes that appropriate force levels should be agreed for certain States other than the United States of America and the Soviet Union. This means those other members of the Ten-Power Committee who are willing to enter into such an agreement. Stage II includes a larger Disarmament Conference to fix force levels for all other militarily significant States.

Dr. Thompson: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask whether we may have an assurance that, in view of the rundown of conventional forces in some of the countries involved, the Government are concerned that the force levels which are fixed in accordance with Cmd. Paper 981, section 1, subsection (d), will not be greater than the actual size of the military forces at the time these levels are fixed? Otherwise, the absurd situation will exist that countries, to reach the force level, will have to increase their armed forces rather than reduce them.

Mr. Profumo: I had better content myself by saying that discussions at the Geneva Conference have not yet reached a point at which it would be practicable for us to put further proposals about the force levels of other States.

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to make a state-

ment on the Ten-Power Disarmament Conference.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why Her Majesty's Government has refused at Geneva to accept, as a basis for discussion on disarmament, a plan for. total world disarmament.

Mr. S. Silverman: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether total world disarmament at the earliest practical date remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Profumo: As my right hon. and learned Friend said on 30th March, the conference has been studying the Soviet and Western proposals. They have not yet discussed details. I hope that this stage will soon be reached.
The Western plan as a whole provides a sensible and realistic approach to comprehensive disarmament. In present circumstances to talk of total disarmament would be quite unrealistic.

Mr. Henderson: In view of the difficulty in getting information about the conference, could the right hon. Gentleman state to what extent common ground has already been reached? Will he publish a White Paper in the next week or two containing the points of agreement and disagreement at the conference?

Mr. Profumo: There has been a certain amount of common ground. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the two plans together he will be able to discern them for himself. He suggested the publication of a White Paper. Agreement has now been reached about verbatim proceedings being published at regular intervals, subject to ten-Power agreement on each occasion. Details will be announced before long.

Mr. Swingler: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why the idea of total disarmament is reckoned to be unrealistic by the Foreign Office? Many-people thought that it was a universally accepted principle that these discussions started with the aim of achieving total disarmament under effective international control. Have the Government retreated from that?

Mr. Profumo: No. There has been no retreat at all. The hon. Gentleman


knows OUT final aim. The term "total disarmament" suggests the abolition even of such reduced forces as will remain necessary for the maintenance of internal security and the fulfilment of obligations under the United Nations Charter. That is unrealistic.

Mr. Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman's original Answer did not answer Question No. 17 at all. That Question asks whether total world disarmament at the earliest practical date remains the policy of the Government. Does not the right hon. Gentleman remember that when Mr. Khrushchev made his proposal there was a General Election going on in this country, and the Foreign Secretary made a speech on television in which he welcomed that proposal and promised cooperation in achieving it?
Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that a great many votes were given for his party on that assurance—perhaps more than on any other issue? Will he make it clear, not merely here but at Geneva, that total world disarmament remains, in modern conditions, the only hope of survival by the human race?

Mr. Profumo: Our objectives are very clearly stated and set out in the Western Plan. For the sake of the hon. Gentleman and of the House, so that there shall be no misunderstanding and no aspersions cast, I shall read it:
The ultimate goal is a secure, free and peaceful world in which there shall be general disarmament under effective international control and agreed procedures for the settlement of disputes in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter.

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in order to break the deadlock of the Ten-Nation Disarmament conference, he will propose that the levels to which armed forces shall be reduced during the early stages of the disarmament plan shall be those proposed in the Anglo-French Plan of 1954 and accepted by the Soviet representatives in 1955.

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in order to break the deadlock on disarmament, he will at the forthcoming Western Foreign Ministers' Conference propose the inclusion in the first stage of the Western disarmament plain of the same ceiling figures for United States, Soviet, Chinese, British, French, etc., armaments,

as those fixed in the original Anglo-French proposals of 1953–54, endorsed in the Soviet proposals of 10th May, 1955; and whether he will further press for acceptance of the Soviet proposal that the powers taking part in the Summit Conference should undertake never to be the first to resort to nuclear weapons.

Mr. Profumo: I do not agree that there is a deadlock at this conference. As for the levels of forces proposed in the Western Disarmament Plan, I would refer the hon. Gentlemen to the Answer my hon. Friend gave in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) on 4th April. As for the last pact of the Question by the hon, Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus), the answer is "No, Sir."

Mr. Warbey: I am glad to hear that there is no deadlock at the disarmament conference, but how does the right hon. Gentleman expect world opinion to take seriously the Western Powers' claim that they desire disarmament when they put forward proposals which involve, at least in the first two stages, a great deal of control and practically no disarmament?

Mr. Profumo: I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman says. What we are trying to do is to proceed to disarmament by stages, with control and disarmament going together at each stage.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is it not a fact that the Soviet Government have objected to the first stage of the existing plan on the ground that the level of 2·5 million is slightly above the existing levels, and therefore the plan asks for control without disarmament? Would not that objection be met by going back to the 1954 figures? Furthermore, is it really the Government's contention that we propose to reject the plan not to use nuclear weapons first, and that we still stick to the line that we will use them first even if it means suicide?

Mr. Profumo: The force levels proposed in the Western Plan are those agreed with Soviet Union in the 1957 disarmament negotiations.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what positive proposals he is advancing at Geneva to meet the difficulty as to whether disarmament or control should come first.

Mr. Profumo: I have little to add to the reply my hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) on 4th April, except to say that the present difficulty is not so much that described by the hon. Gentleman as the definition of what constitutes general disarmament and how it should be achieved.

Mr. Rankin: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that whatever proposals are advanced in the discussions at Geneva some risks must be taken? Would he agree that fee must either take the risk of showing some measure of confidence in the Russian proposals or run the infinitely greater risk of involving this nation in nuclear warfare? Will he assure us, for our comfort, that he will not take the second risk?

Mr. Profumo: I can best assure the hon. Member by saying that "No disarmament without control and no control without disarmament" is now common to both sides.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Mr. C. Pannell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will instruct the British delegate to the United Nations to table a resolution to ensure that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the Assembly on 10th December, 1948, is observed, that everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment.

Mr. Profumo: I do not think that a resolution on the lines proposed by the hon. Gentleman could have any greater effect than has the Universal Declaration itself. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Declaration was proclaimed by the General Assembly as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.

Mr. Pannell: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the things that have happened since then in South Africa? Does he appreciate that the Declaration refers to the right to work, that the right to work also involves the right to refuse to work, and that not

since the late eighteenth century has it been legal in this country to force a man to work? But in South Africa last week, in certain towns, after the time of 8 o'clock in the morning, men were driven to work either with clubs or whips. It is for this reason that I think that the Government, as head of the Commonwealth, should lay down a standard of civilised conduct with which the rest of the Commonwealth should agree. Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when this sort of thing happened in Hungary we were very anxious to rush in. Will he agree that evil is indivisible?

Mr. Profumo: That is a very ramified supplementary question and rather far from the original one, which is directed towards the United Nations, and which I have tried to answer.

Mr. Pannell: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman is questioning my bona fides in asking this supplementary question. I sent him a letter of explanation why I was asking the Question before I asked it.

Mr. Profumo: I am not criticising the hon. Member's bona fides. I am saying that his supplementary question is rather far from his original Question. I am sure that the hon. Member realises that the whole problem of Hungary was entirely different, as there was invasion by foreign forces. This Question deals with the United Nations, and my answer is that no resolution of the Assembly can "ensure" anything, because all such resolutions are merely recommendations.

Union of South Africa (Security Council Resolution)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what consultations his representative at the United Nations has had with the Secretary General of the United Nations in regard to the implementation of the recent resolution of the Security Council concerning the racial policies of the Union of South Africa.

Mr. Profumo: My right hon. and learned Friend spent the night of 10th April in New York on his way to Washington. In the course of that evening he and Mr. Hammarskjold had a general talk on current questions affecting the United Nations, including


the South African question before the Security Council and disarmament. Sir Pierson Dixon was present.

Mr. Thomson: Though the Government abstained in the Security Council on this question, will the Minister give an assurance that the Government accept the decision taken by the United Nations without any vote against? Will the Government use their good offices to implement that part of the Security Council resolution that calls for consultations between the United Nations and the Government of the Union of South Africa?

Mr. Profnmo: The resolution did not call on other nations. The Council did not call on its members to take any action. The Council called on the Secretary-General. Mr. Hammarskjold, in a Press conference, said that he wants to play this hand "as the Secretary-General" and
as an independent organ of the United Nations.

South West Africa

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress has been made by the United Nations in respect of negotiations with the Government of the Union of South Africa about their responsibilities, as a mandatory power, for the administration of South West Africa, particularly with regard to their recognition of human rights in that territory.

Mr. Wade: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what consultations the representative of Her Majesty's Government at the United Nations has had with the Secretary General of the United Nations with regard to the possibility of negotiating with the Government of the Union of South Africa concerning their responsibilities, as a mandatory power, for the administration of South West Africa.

Mr. Profumo: As my right hon. Friend, the Home Secretary, informed the House on 31st March, the position is that at its recent session the General Assembly adopted a resolution inviting the Union Government to enter into negotiations with the United Nations through its Committee on South West Africa or any other committee which the Assembly might appoint. The

Assembly also requested the Union Government to formulate, for consideration at its fifteenth session this autumn, certain proposals for the administration of South West Africa.
The Committee on South West Africa decided in February that its Chairman, Senor Fabregat of Uruguay, should make an approach to the South African Permanent Representative in New York on the possibility of opening negotiations on South West Africa. No further announcement has been made.
The House will appreciate that the General Assembly has not placed on the Secretary-General responsibility for negotiations.

Mr. Thomson: Is the Minister aware that the inhibitions which the Government feel about interfering in the internal affairs of another Commonwealth country should not operate in respect of South West Africa, which is essentially a United Nations question? Will the Government, therefore, correct the unfortunate impression created by their abstention on the South African resolution before the Security Council by taking the initiative within the United Nations on this question of South West Africa to try to get negotiations going which will put an end to the racialist policies being operated there?

Mr. Profumo: The United Kingdom is not a member of the Committee on South West Africa and it would be inappropriate for Her Majesty's Government to intervene in its affairs.

Mr. Wade: Will the Minister agree that there is an obligation on the United Nations, and therefore on Great Britain as a member nation, to ensure that the original mandate which the International Court recognised is carried out? In view of the appeals that have been made by the Herero people and the evidence that the terms of the mandate are not being observed, will Her Majesty's Government be prepared to support any proposal for international supervision of this territory?

Mr. Profumo: No, Sir. We have always thought that the only possible way of securing a solution to this problem was by getting the co-operation both of the Government administering the territory and the United Nations.

Mr. Callaghan: Is it not the case that the United Nations has asked the South African Government on at least three occasions, if not more, to account for their administration of the area? As the South African Government consistently flout that decision, although this territory is not theirs, although they are the trustees for it—and as other countries including the United Kingdom have accounted for their mandates in other territories—why should not the Government now reverse their previous position and be ready to support some move to take back from the South African Government responsibility for this territory?

Mr. Profumo: This matter is in the hands of the responsible committee of the United Nations and we must leave it to that committee to work the thing out.

Conference on the Law of the Sea

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give details of the efforts made on and since 6th April at the Second United Nations Conference on the Law, of the Sea now sitting at Geneva to bring about a compromise agreement on distant water fishing and territorial waters acceptable to the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and the other States represented there; if he will indicate in detail what obstacles to agreement now remain; and to what extent agreement has so far been reached between the nations involved.

Mr. R. Allan: The United States and Canadian proposals to which I referred last week have been withdrawn and a new joint proposal substituted. This provides for a six-mile territorial sea plus a further six-mile contiguous fishing zone in which fishing States with historic rights would be allowed to continue to fish for ten years. We have supported this proposal.
In addition, there are six other proposals before the Conference.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that the Icelandic delegate has rejected the American-Canadian compromise, on the scientific ground that it would prejudice the spawning grounds and thereby damage the fishing interests of all nations concerned? Will he tell us

what is the scientific answer to that, and whether that scientific answer has been put forward at Geneva? What are the prospects of getting an agreement which is satisfactory to all the nations concerned?

Mr. Allan: As these negotiations are now in a very tricky stage, it would be as well for me not to anticipate. We believe that the plan most likely to succeed is that which we have supported.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA

Refugees

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will ask the Belgian Government to contribute to the cost of maintaining and resettling refugees from the Belgian Congo in Uganda.

Mr. R. Allan: There are no refugees from the Belgian Congo in Uganda. I assume my hon. Friend is referring to refugees from Ruanda-Urundi. Many of these have now returned. The Uganda Government are in touch with the Belgian authorities about expenditure incurred, which so far amounts to £800.

Mr. Goodhart: Is my hon. Friend aware that many thousands of Africans may be killed in political unrest in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi this year? Is he also aware that many potential refugees have been turned back at the frontier and that a substantial flood of refugees may be expected later in the year? Is he aware that the Belgian Government bear moral responsibility for the fate of these refugees?

Mr. Allan: I certainly hope that my hon. Friend's fear does not materialise. We see no reason to think that it will. An assurance has been given that a permit to stay will be given to any refugee who goes to Uganda if he can establish that, if he returned, he would be in danger of victimisation or would be tried for an offence of a political character.

Belgian Congo Currency (Convertibility)

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what representations have been made to the


Belgian Government about the restrictions now placed upon the convertibility of Belgian Congo currency, in view of the difficulties caused to traders in Western Uganda.

Mr. R. Allan: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies is in touch with the Government of Uganda to discover the extent and nature of the difficulties experienced by traders in Western Uganda. If, after establishing the facts, an approach to the Belgian Government seems justified we shall make one. Meanwhile, we have made sure that the Belgian authorities in Leopoldville know of the Government of Uganda's concern in this matter.

Mr. Goodhart: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that a substantial number of traders in Western Uganda face ruin from the action taken by the Belgian Government in this matter?

Mr. Allan: We would like to establish the facts first. As I say, we are prepared to take up the matter with the Belgian authorities.

THE YEMEN (RELATIONS)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the visit of the Governor of Aden to the Yemen included diplomatic contact and conversations between him and representatives of the Yemeni Government; and what improvements have recently taken place in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Yemen.

Mr. Profumo: The Governor's visit was unofficial and he and Lady Luce were guests of Her Majesty's Charge d'Affaires in Taiz. He did, however, have private conversations with the Crown Prince and Yemeni officials. Relations between the United Kingdom and the Yemen have since improved and there has been local co-operation to minimise the effect of inter-tribal incidents on the borders of Yemen and the Aden Protectorate.

Mr. Sorensen: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer. May I ask him whether incidents have ceased for some time past along the border between the Protectorate and Aden, and whether this situation is likely to continue?

Mr. Profumo: Yes, that is correct. I hope very much that it is likely to continue.

HER MAJESTY'S AMBASSADOR, PARIS

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why Her Majesty's Ambassador in Paris is described in official documents issued by the Embassy as Ambassadeur de l' Angleterre; in how many other posts the Ambassador is similarly described; and whether he will instruct all representatives abroad to use the expression United Kingdom, or its translated equivalent, in their official style.

Mr. R. Allan: I have made inquiries about this, and, as far as I can discover, no official documents issued by the Embassy describe Her Majesty's Ambassador in Paris as Ambassadeur de l' Angleterre.
He, like all other of Her Majesty's representatives abroad, use in their official style the expression "Ambassador for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" or its translated equivalent.
I have, however, ascertained that on his personal invitation cards printed in French at his own expense, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Paris has been using, in accordance with a long-established local tradition, the expression Ambassadeur d'Angleterre.

Mr. Woodbnm: Is the Minister not aware that there are other parts of the United Kingdom that have long connections with France? So far as Scotland is concerned, if the Government wish their Ambassador to be described as Ambassadeur de l'Angleterre they might arrange for an Ambassadeur d'Ecosse. I am willing to volunteer for that. I think that it is very bad for the education of people abroad that this kind of description should be used. My attention was called to this matter by visiting Members of Parliament from France last week. They were surprised and I was surprised, and I hope that other embassies will have their attention called to this matter so that the description can be accurate to show that this is an educated country.

Mr. Allan: Being a Scot myself. I am aware of the earlier points made by the


right hon. Gentleman. I will draw my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to this point. Although he is an Englishman, he had a Scottish education and therefore is well fitted to judge in this matter.

CYPRUS (NEGOTIATIONS)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a further statement on the Cyprus negotiations.

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement about the negotiations regarding Cyprus.

Mr. Profumo: I have nothing to add to the Answers I gave on 6th April, except that the discussion in Cyprus will, of course, be adjourned for the period of Easter.

Mr. Donnelly: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how the Foreign Secretary's final terms are faring in these negotiations?

Mr. Profumo: The negotiations are still in progress. There is no question of a breakdown. This morning, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies held meetings, first, with Archbishop Makarios and then with Dr. Kutchuk. I have not yet had a report of the outcome.

Mr. Callaghan: Is it the case that we started by saying that we could not manage with less than 170 miles, that the Archbishop said we could not have more than 36 and that then we came down to 120 and he went up to 80? Now he has come up to 93. Does not this process of Eastern bargaining bode rather ill for the future of our base in Cyprus? Can the Government give an assurance that there is a determination on their part to ensure that there shall be a satisfactory settlement, and, in so far as they are able to comment, can they also give us an assurance that the Archbishop is willing that there should be a base of a proper size established there?

Mr. Profumo: The Archbishop is willing that there should be a base. He is negotiating, as we are, under the London and Zurich Agreements. I cannot quote figures about the size of the

sovereign base areas, but I think that I can say that the gap certainly has been narrowed. With regard to the final situation, I hope that the House appreciates that this is not merely a question of numbers of square miles. The United Kingdom has responsibilities and obligations which we cannot abrogate.

SPAIN (NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what recent proposals he has received from other member-nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that Spain shall be admitted to the Organisation.

Mr. R. Allan: None, Sir.

Mr. Warbey: In view of the recent statement of the German Foreign Minister that there is growing opinion in favour of the admission of Spain to N.A.T.O., will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government do not share this view?

Mr. Allan: Membership of N.A.T.O. is a matter for all the members of the Organisation together.

Mr. Warbey: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my supplementary question? Will he give the assurance for which I ask?

Mr. Allan: My right hon. Friend dealt with this matter fully in answer to recent Questions. He said:
I am certainly not going to make any such declaration in advance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1960; Vol. 619, c. 27.]
I cannot add to that.

NUCLEAR TESTS

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government that a limited number of nuclear tests are essential to the projected research into the detection of small underground tests; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Profumo: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman may remember, the idea of a joint series of experiments underground, on which an effective control system might be based, was put


forward by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary in his speech in the House on 29th October last.
I think it is important that a programme of co-ordinated research into the detection of underground nuclear explosions, as now proposed, should produce results which will be beyond dispute. It seems to us that this cannot be done without some experimental underground nuclear explosions.

Mr. Henderson: Does the Minister's reply mean that during the period of the moratorium no underground tests will take place except for the express purpose of reseach work, and that they will be held under the joint responsibility of the three Governments?

Mr. Profumo: Yes, that is so.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement about the latest developments in the nuclear tests conference.

Mr. Profumo: At the meetings of the Conference during the past ten days, questions have been put by the Soviet delegation about the joint statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Eisenhower of 30th March, and explanations have been given by the Western delegations.
A number of subsidiary matters relating to the structure and functioning of the control organisations have also been discussed.
The United States and United Kingdom delegations have proposed that there should be discussions in Geneva early in May on the technical aspects of the co-ordinated research programme proposed by President Eisenhower and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that on 7th April—after the Prime Minister's visit to Washington—it was reported from Geneva that Britain and America were insisting that some nuclear test explosions were still necessary? Why is this? Is the Minister aware that there would be widespread dismay if the test talks failed either on this account or over differences with regard to the number of inspections to be held annually?

Mr. Profumo: The number of inspections to be held annually is something which is to be discussed in detail later, but I can assure the hon. Member that the talks will not fail for the reasons he has suggested.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not a fact that the Russians have accepted the proposal for joint research into the problem of small explosions, which necessarily involves explosions taking place in the process of that research?

Mr. Profumo: Yes. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was here, but I answered that question earlier this afternoon.

SUMMIT CONFERENCE

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

MR. S. SILVERMAN: TO ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he will take the initiative at the forthcoming Summit Conference to propose, as a means of lessening international tension and the danger of war, a non-aggression treaty in which all nations in the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would join.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Silverman.

Mr. Silverman: Before asking Question No. 23, Mr. Speaker, may I ask for your guidance, and, if possible, assistance. You will see that the Question asks the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will take a certain initiative. I never asked any such Question. I asked the Prime Minister, who is alone able to take the initiative at the Summit Conference, that Question, and I heard on Monday morning that the Prime Minister had transferred it to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
I am not complaining about that: I know that I have no right to do so. The question that I am putting to you, Mr. Speaker, is whether the full character of the Question, in this particular instance, has not been changed? It is quite clear that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will not have the initiative at the Summit Conference, and in any event the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is not here.
I would therefore ask you, Mr. Speaker, before I ask the Question, which I do not yet do, whether you can assist me in this matter in any way? The Question on the Order Paper is not a Question which I have directed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Speaker: I should like to think about what could be done. I do not wish to make a mocking answer, but as the question of transfer is not a matter for me I suppose that every hon. Member has to frame his Question in such a form that it is immune to vitiation by transfer. I will think about the matter, if I may. I gather that the hon. Member wants to ask his Question, nonetheless.

Mr. Silverman: Since I am in no way interested in any initiative which the Minister of State obviously will have no power to take at the Summit Conference —because he will not be there—and which the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will have no power to take, even if he is there, I beg to ask leave not to ask the Question.

ANTARCTICA (INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the practical measures of international co-operation in the Continent of Antarctica in which Her Majesty's Government have participated since the signing of the international agreement relating to that Continent.

Mr. R. Allan: The Treaty has not yet been ratified by any country although Her Majesty's Government hope to do so soon. In the meantime, apart from an increase in the free exchange of general and scientific information, discussions are being held in Washington about the form future co-operation should take.

Mr. Hughes: Have not Her Majesty's Government practically agreed to some measure of neutralisation in the Antarctic Continent, with a view to providing security for the penguins there? Is it not time that they adopted the same attitude towards Europe, which is more highly populated?

Mr. Allan: My right hon. and learned Friend has already referred to the

neutralising of the area, but in negotiating the Treaty we did not have to consult the penguins, which are not political animals—fortunately for them, perhaps.

ORGANISATIONS, WESTERN EUROPE (UNITED KINGDOM MEMBERSHIP)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the threatened split in Europe, he will now apply for British membership of some of the functional organisations in Western Europe.

Mr. Profumo: Her Majesty's Government are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation and the Council of Europe. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the political and the economic reasons which have prevented us from becoming members of the supranational Communities of the Six. Our policy is to establish the closest possible association with them.

Mr. Grimond: Do I take it that the Minister is in disagreement with his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who has said it is a pity that we did not join the Coal and Steel Community?

Mr. Profumo: I hope that I am not in disagreement with my right hon. and learned Friend. I was answering the Question which the hon. Member put down.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: What steps are the Government taking to heal this split in Europe, beyond rather plaintively putting forward a point of view which has been rejected by Europe for the last three years?

Mr. Profumo: We have established formal relations with all three Communities, and have accredited a representative to them.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Training Centre, Northern Region

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Labour when a Ministry of Labour Training Centre will be established in the Northern Region.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Peter Thomas): My right hon. Friend is at present reviewing the need for a local centre.

Dame Irene Ward: Will my hon. Friend convey to his right hon. Friend the fact that the whole of the North will be awaiting the outcome of this review? Will he also bear in mind that he has an opportunity to implement the statement of good will towards the North East Coast? I am sure that my right hon. Friend will implement his pledges, but will he please get on with it, because we are fed up with waiting?

Mr. Thomas: I will certainly convey to my right hon. Friend what my hon. Friend has said, but she should bear in mind that, before taking any final decision on this matter, my right horn. Friend will require to know the attitude of local trade associations, and consultations with this object in mind are now taking place.

Boys, Northern Region

Mr. Randall: asked the Minister of Labour what action he is taking to deal with the serious unemployment of boys under 18 years of age in the northern region.

Mr. P. Thomas: The Government have shown their anxiety to help deal with this problem by designating several areas in the region as development districts under the Local Employment Act. Youth employment officers in the region will continue to do all they can to place boys in suitable work.

Mr. Randall: That reply does not give a great deal of comfort to the 1,640 boys under 18 years of age in the northern region, which is one of the worst regions in the country in this respect. I believe that Scotland is closely associated with it. For those 1,640 boys there are only 604 vacancies. Can the hon. Gentleman do something in the North East, in order that these boys who recently left school may have an opportunity of employment?

Mr. Thomas: I appreciate what the hon. Member has said. The difficulty here is very much tied up with the difficulties of the general employment situation. It was for these reasons that parts of the northern area, to the extent of 28 per

cent. of the insured population, were put on the list under the Local Employment Act.

Miners, Merthyr Tydfil

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that, because of the policy recently adopted by the National Coal Board, 45 per cent. of those employed in the small mines in the Merthyr Tydfil constituency have been rendered unemployed; and what action he will take to ensure suitable employment for these men.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Edward Heath): In the last three months, twenty-one men have ceased for various reasons to be employed in licensed mines in the Merthyr Tydfil area. Two of them are still registered for employment, and my officers are endeavouring to place them.

Mr. Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in that very area the unemployment figure has varied from 4½ per cent. to 5 per cent. for the last four to four-and-a-half years? Will he also take into consideration that most of these miners now displaced from the small mines, by reason either of age or injury, will not be able to take up work in the deep mines?

Mr. Heath: I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has another Question on the Order Paper dealing with the disabled and that in those matters there will be some difficulty. Of the twenty-one men referred to in my reply, all but two have secured employment and we are hoping to place these two.

Partially Disabled Miners, South Wales

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that, of those engaged until recently in the small mines in South Wales, 20 per cent. were partially disabled miners from the deep mines, and that, because of the conditions imposed by the National Coal Board, these partially disabled miners are now being rendered unemployed; and what action he will take to restore these men to employment.

Mr. Heath: A small number of disabled are among those who have become unemployed in areas where these mines


are mainly concentrated. My disablement resettlement officers will do their best to find alternative work for those whom the National Coal Board cannot engage.

Mr. Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, owing to the uncertain and contradictory policies of the National Coal Board, particularly with respect to mining in South Wales, a great deal of confidence in the Board has been lost? Is he aware that I hope he will have something to say to the Coal Board so that it will not continue to discourage people from working in the mines?

Mr. Heath: Negotiations between the National Coal Board and the Federation of Small Mines continue, and I prefer not to comment at the moment.

Mr. Davies: indicated dissent.

Bideford

Mr. P. Browne: asked the Minister of Labour the number of men over 21 years of age registered as unemployed at the Bideford employment exchange at the last count; and how this compares with the figures at the same time last year.

Mr. Heath: There were 231 aged 18 and over at 14th March, 1960, compared with 238 at 9th March, 1959. Figures are not available for age 21 and over.

Mr. Browne: Will my right hon. Friend draw the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to these figures and, in view of their similarity, suggest that he might include this area in his new list?

Mr. Heath: I know that my right hon. Friend has given consideration to this point, but I am afraid that he has not found it possible to include the area in the list.

Palace of Westminster (Staff)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Labour what representations he has received from the trade unions concerned asking for his help in securing recognition of the principle of collective bargaining for the staff employed in the Palace of Westminster.

Mr. Heath: I have received representations from one organisation, some of whose members are on the staff of the

House, that arrangements should be made for negotiation and joint consultation. I propose to inform Mr. Speaker as Chairman of the Commissioners for regulating the offices of the House of Commons of this suggestion.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Palace of Westminster is the only Royal Palace where the full rights of trade union recognition are denied to the staff? Is he aware also that representations for the setting up of joint negotiating machinery have been made by the appropriate trade unions to the authorities of this House in the past and have been rejected? In view of this very bad example that we are setting, will the right hon. Gentleman go further and see that we have, under his leadership, the establishment of proper joint negotiating machinery?

Mr. Heath: It is not possible for me, as Minister of Labour, to introduce joint consultation machinery into any particular industrial organisation for which I have not direct responsibility. I think that the best procedure in the case of these representations is to adopt the method I mentioned in my Answer.

Mr. Prentice: When all the parties in this House believe in collective bargaining, surely it is anomalous that there is not this procedure in the Palace of Westminster? Surely there are some steps which the Minister can take to bring his influence to bear in this matter?

Mr. Heath: I am sure that the Commissioners responsible for the House will note the exchanges on this Question.

Mr. C. Pannell: asked the Minister of Labour what machinery exists under his Department for dealing with the representations of officers or servants of the House in the event of disputes concerning their conditions of employment.

Mr. Heath: None, Sir.

Mr. Pannell: Will the right hon. Gentleman, first, appreciate that most of the Commissioners of this House do not know they hold the job—they do not even know they exist? Will the Minister bear in mind that the statement of the Leader of the House that most members of the staff of this House are satisfied with the present set-up, is not borne out by the representations made to me


since the right hon. Gentleman made that statement? Would it not be rather to the credit of the House that we should all use all the efforts we can to have the rights of collective bargaining recognised in this place as they are recognised in every other place outside the Palace of Westminster?

Mr. Heath: I think that a very important point, but whether the machinery should be under my Department or not is a different question.

Youths and Boys (Scotland and the Midlands)

Mr. T. Fraser: asked the Minister of Labour what proportion of Great Britain's total of men under 20 years of age who had been wholly unemployed for six months or more were registered in Scotland, and the Midlands, respectively, at the latest convenient date.

Mr. P. Thomas: In Scotland 37 per cent. and in the Midlands 1·6 per cent. at 7th December, 1959.

Mr. Fraser: Is the Minister aware that these two regions have, broadly speaking, the same population, and do not the figures which he has announced show the great need for much more vigorous action on the part of the Government to stimulate employment north of the Border?

Mr. Thomas: I agree that these figures show that the Midland area has a high level of employment and that Scotland has great difficulties regarding employment at the moment. For these reasons, as well as others, 61 per cent. of the insured population of Scotland is now in areas which have been listed under the Local Employment Act.

Mr. Rankin: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he could do much to alleviate the situation as it applies to the group between the ages of 15 and 18 years, which is comprehended in the figures given, and also that he could encourage his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to go ahead with day-release schemes and apprenticeship schemes to cater for these lads not in employment at present? Is he aware that by the greater use and expansion of the youth centres it would be possible to engage more fully the activities of those boys and youths still unemployed?

Mr. Thomas: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Our Department is doing everything it can in these matters.

Mr. Lawson: asked the Minister of Labour the ratio of boys under 18 years of age registered as wholly unemployed to the number of unfilled notified vacancies for boys in Scotland, and the Midlands, respectively, at the latest available date.

Mr. P. Thomas: On 14th March, for every 100 boys registered as wholly unemployed, there were 36 unfilled notified vacancies in Scotland and 1,888 in the Midlands.

Mr. Lawson: Does not this show the really shocking contrast between two parts of the United Kingdom? Will the Parliamentary Secretary take it from hon. Members on this side of the House that the measures which have so far been adopted by the Government are far from showing any likelihood of meeting this problem? Will he urge on his right hon. Friend, and upon the President of the Board of Trade, that much more stringent measures than those so far taken are needed to meet the shocking conditions which exist in Scotland?

Mr. Thomas: My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade continues, as he said he would, to refuse industrial development certificates in these congested areas, except in the most exceptional cases. There has been a great improvement in the figures regarding unemployment among boys under 18 in Scotland.

Mr. Small: asked the Minister of Labour the ratio of boys under 18 years of age registered as wholly unemployed to the number of unfilled notified vacancies in the cities of Glasgow and Birmingham, respectively, at the latest convenient date.

Mr. P. Thomas: On 14th March, for every 100 boys registered as wholly unemployed, there were 37 unfilled notified vacancies in the City of Glasgow and 2,849 in the City of Birmingham.

Mr. Small: Is the Minister aware that the population of these two cities is, roughly speaking, the same in size? Is he aware of the social problem which lies behind this difficulty, that a youth in Birmingham has a reasonable opportunity of living a full life, but that a


youth in Glasgow faces the humiliating prospect of being unable to get a job after having received a reasonably good education?

Mr. Thomas: I appreciate the social problem and I can assure the hon. Gentleman of my pleasure that Glasgow has been made a development district under the Local Employment Act.

Lanark

Miss Herbison: asked the Minister of Labour the ratio of boys under 18 years of age registered as wholly unemployed in the County of Lanark, at the latest convenient date, to the number of unfilled notified vacancies.

Mr. Thomas: On 11th April, there were 22 vacancies for every 100 wholly unemployed boys.

Miss Herbison: Does the Minister realise that that Answer and others which have been given today show the state of the employment position for young people in Scotland? Is he also aware that his Government must bear fullest responsibility, because of their actions since 1951? May I ask him if he has ever seen any of these youths going from factory to factory from morning to night trying to find jobs, and coming back home at night weary and disheartened, feeling that nobody in this world is interested in them?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, I can assure the hon. Lady that I have seen boys in these circumstances, and I fully appreciate the difficulties and the social implications. The hon. Lady is aware, of course, of the vast area in Scotland which is now listed under the Local Employment Act, and of the projects in the pipeline, and I hope that the general employment situation, which we hope will improve soon, will assist in the employment of boys.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will state the business of the House for the week after the Recess?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The proposed business for the first week after the Easter Recess will be:
TUESDAY, 26TH APRIL—Supply [11th Allotted Day]:
It is proposed to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on Civil Estimates, 1960–61.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) will move an Amendment relating to Capital Investment in Industry.
WEDNESDAY, 27TH APRIL—Third Reading of the International Development Association Bill.
Report and Third Reading of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Bill.
THURSDAY, 28TH APRIL—Second Reading of the Charities Bill [Lords], and Committee Stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
FRIDAY, 29TH APRIL—Consideration of Private Members' Bills.
The proposed business for MONDAY, 2ND MAY, will be Supply [12th Allotted Day]: Committee. A debate on Housing and Local Government in England, Wales and Scotland will take place on the appropriate Votes.

Mr. Short: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Newcastle upon Tyne Corporation Bill, which passed its Committee stage last week, has been blocked on two occasions this week by some of his hon. Friends? I have ascertained that this was done on the instructions of the Government Whips. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] As this Bill has had its Committee stage, and has cost the ratepayers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne many thousands of pounds to present to this House, is not this a gross abuse of democratic procedure in this House? Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that this Bill is concerned, among other things, with bus fares for aged people, the blind and the disabled, and in view of this, is he not thoroughly ashamed of himself and of the hon. Members behind him?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. I must entirely repudiate the suggestion that the Bill was blocked on the organisation and advice of the Government Whips. At the same time, I am aware of the value of the Bill, and also that it contains certain provisions which caused people to examine whether these same provisions are in application elsewhere. That may be the reason why there has been some


objection to the passage of the Bill, as such. I will certainly speak to the hon. Gentleman and consider the objections, if he cares to see me.

Mr. Gaitskell: Are we to understand from that reply that the right hon. Gentleman contemplates that a Government Measure covering broadly the same ground as this Private Bill, but extending to other authorities, is likely to be introduced?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir, but, having a very lively awareness of what hon. Members are thinking, I have been informed that hon. Members have had some difficulties about the Bill because of the nature of the perfectly humane concessions included in it. I was only imparting that information to the House. I was not undertaking a further Government programme.

Major Legge-Bourke: As I was the Chairman of the Select Committee before which that Bill appeared, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that, if there is a good case for opposing the Bill on Report, the argument is that the 1955 Act ought to be repealed; and if the Government will not repeal it they have no right to oppose the Bill?

Mr. Butler: I see the importance of my hon. and gallant Friend's question, but it has not been the Government who have been opposing the Bill. I am, however, aware of the important issues raised, and I should like to see the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) and have a talk with him on the subject.

Mr. Short: Further to the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), may I point out that the 1955 Act was introduced by myself, but that the Government mucked it up by Amendments, though I warned them that they were doing so. I recently introduced a Private Member's Bill to amend that Act, but Government supporters, also on the instructions of the Government Whips, are blocking that Bill. If they will not let a Public Bill introduced by a private Member go through, or a Private Bill introduced by a local authority go through, how are we to get out of this tangle?

Mr. Butler: I cannot accept that all these machinations are being organised by the Government.

Mr. K. Robinson: Could the right hon. Gentleman say when the Government intend to have a debate on the Report of the Royal Commission on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration, or does the right hon. Gentleman take the view that, since the Government have come to a decision without ascertaining the views of either House of Parliament, a debate would be a waste of time?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. No debate in this House is ever a waste of time. We are fortified by the views of hon. Members. But what is clear is that there is no time before Easter.

Mr. Callaghan: May I ask the Leader of the House if he has yet been able to consider the Bill proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower), about leasehold reform in South Wales? If he has, is he willing to give Government time for the further consideration of the Bill, and so relieve a great many people in South Wales?

Mr. Butler: While not underestimating the importance of leasehold reform in South Wales, I can offer no time at present for such a Bill.

Mr. Willis: Has the attention of the Leader of the House been drawn to the astonishing figures given recently in answer to Questions concerning the industrial situation in Scotland, and, in particular, the figures which have been given today about opportunities for the employment of youth? Will he, in the light of these figures, now consider whether he could provide an opportunity to discuss the Motion on the Order Paper in the names of all Scottish Labour Members regarding special provisions for employment?

[That this House, while welcoming the efforts being made to induce development of private industry in areas of high unemployment, believes that where those efforts prove insufficient it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to bring full employment to those areas by setting up and operating publicly owned enterprises.]

Mr. Butler: We have had recent opportunities for considering this, and the Opposition had the opportunity of putting this down for a Supply day. I draw


this to the attention of the Leader of the Opposition. Apart from that, I cannot see in the immediate future an opportunity of debating this Motion.

Sir S. Summers: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that in one of the early weeks after the Recess he will find time for a debate on the Albemarle Report?

Mr. Butler: I am not sure that we shall have an early opportunity, but I am aware that hon. Members wish to discuss it.

LONG-RANGE BALLISTIC MISSILE (BLUE STREAK)

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): The Government have been considering the future of the project for developing the long-range ballistic missile Blue Streak and have been in touch with the Australian Government about it, in view of their interest in the joint project and the operation of the Woomera range.
The technique of controlling ballistic missiles has rapidly advanced. The vulnerability of missiles launched from static sites, and the practicability of launching missiles of considerable range from mobile platforms, has now been established. In the light of our military advice to this effect, and of the importance of reinforcing the effectiveness of the deterrent, we have concluded and the Australian Government have fully accepted that we ought not to continue to develop, as a military weapon, a missile that can be launched only from a fixed site.
Today, our strategic nuclear force is an effective and significant contribution to the deterrent power of the free world. The Government do not intend to give up this independent contribution, and, therefore, some other vehicle will in due course be needed in place of Blue Streak to carry British-manufactured nuclear warheads. The need for this is not immediately urgent, since the effectiveness of the V-bomber force as the vehicle for these warheads will remain unimpaired for several years to come, nor is it possible at the moment to say with certainty which of several possibilities or combinations of them would be technically the most suitable. On present information, there appears much

to be said for prolonging the effectiveness of the V-bombers by buying supplies of the airborne ballistic missile Skybolt which is being developed in the United States. Her Majesty's Government understand that the United States Government will be favourably disposed to the purchase by the United Kingdom at the appropriate time of supplies of this vehicle.
The Government will now consider with the firms and other interests concerned, as a matter of urgency, whether the Blue Streak programme could be adapted for the development of a launcher for space satellites. A further statement will be made to the House as soon as possible.
This decision, of course, does not mean that the work at Woomera will be ended. On the contrary, there are many other projects for which the range is needed. We therefore expect that for some years to come, at least, there will be a substantial programme of work for that range.

Mr. G. Brown: In so far as this announces the end of Blue Streak as a military programme, the Opposition, who have been pressing this steadily for three years, can only welcome it and welcome the belated decision by the Government to end it. The House will, I hope, forgive me if I ask several questions, for this is a grave and important statement.
This brings to a head a most incredible chapter of obstinacy and of determination to go on with something long after all kinds of people everywhere were clear in their minds that it was wrong. I am bound, therefore, to ask the Minister whether he will tell us the amount of money which has been invested in this missile which has never come even to any kind of fruition. Am I right in thinking that £100 million would be a very conservative estimate?
It is not only money which has been wasted, but also a vast amount of time and immense resources. I feel bound to ask the Government to consider the immediate establishment of some form of inquiry. We understand, of course, that it would not be able to meet in public or anything like that, and that it would have to be a carefully appointed body, but it seems to us that an inquiry into how this came to continue for so long, and how one or two men were able,


by determination and obstinacy, to keep this going, is owed to the House and to the country. I ask whether the Minister will do that.
May I ask two questions about the future? The right hon. Gentleman asserts in his statement that the Government are determined to maintain the independent deterrent, but a decision which has turned out to be wrong is now replaced by a decision to take no decision. Is the Minister assuring the House that he can make good that assertion in view of the fact that he intends to take no decision about the successor vehicle to the V-bomber and that the only vehicle which he mentioned, Skybolt, is one which does not yet exist and that nobody can know at this stage whether it ever will? Is the Minister prepared to assure the House, and to stand by the assurance in later years, that he can guarantee that there will not be a period when there is no effective independent deterrent because nothing exists to carry it at that time?
It seems to me that he should answer those questions and, in particular, should give us the assurance that this will be deeply inquired into, otherwise the House and the country must be left with an overwhelming impression of Ministerial and official incompetence and of a determination to hide it at the end of it all.

Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman asked a lot of questions, and I will endeavour to answer them. The first question was about cost. The cost of this project to date is about £65 million. The cost of completing it would be between £500 and £600 million. In other words, the project has been stopped when something like only one-sixth of the expense has been incurred.

Oh.

rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a lot to do, and these exchanges do not seem to improve the acoustics.

Mr. Watkinson: I am only anxious that the House should have the facts. They are in no way discreditable to the Government. None of the £65 million expenditure will be wasted if it is

decided to go ahead with Blue Streak as a launcher for a space satellite, and I have said that that is now under examination. It could not be examined before, because it needs detailed discussion with the firms and all the interested parties.
As to the much broader issue of how we maintain the independent deterrent, as we are so determined to do, that was fully discussed in the defence debate, and I will add only that the V-bombers are a valid contribution to the deterrent until beyond the mid-1960s. Blue Streak would not have been available, either, until beyond the mid-1960s. The present view that Skybolt may be our best immediate decision would certainly fit in with that time scale; in other words, it would be available just as soon as Blue Streak would have been available.
I do not rule out further decisions at a later stage on other types of missile, and with a combination of these, including Skybolt, as far as I can see at the moment there would be no greater deterrent gap than there would have been in the combination of the V-bombers followed by Blue Streak.

Mr. G. Brown: If the last remark is true, it is an additional condemnation of those who embarked on this project. May I take the Minister back to my pressure for an inquiry? A sum of £65 million, even if that is all that it has cost, is a large sum. One has to see what is being brought into the costings here—how much of the sum spent on Spadeadam which would not have been required and how much allowed for Woomera which otherwise would not have been required—before deciding on a figure. Even if £65 million is the total sum—and I doubt that—it is no insignificant sum of money, and a very much greater fuss was made by hon. Members opposite about projects embarked on by a Labour Government where the total involved was never even half this amount.
May I, therefore, press on the Minister that the country has the right to know the circumstances in which this was continued long after the position was apparent? May I press on him that those circumstances should be probed and that we should be shown how it happened and assured about the future? After all, it was clear to many hon.


Members a long time ago that this was wrong. I press the Minister to consider the matter and to say that he will at least consider setting up an appropriate body of inquiry.

Mr. Watkinson: I cannot accept the right hon. Gentleman's views. Everybody has a right to make guesses about any particular weapon. As my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Aviation said in the defence debate of last year, the decision then—which was a perfectly right military decision—was that, because there was no better mobile alternative, work should go forward with this missile.

Hon. Members: Where is the Minister of Aviation?

Mr. Watkinson: When we came to the debate—

Mr. Callaghan: Where is he?

Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) cannot contain himself, perhaps he will at least kindly let me answer the questions if he wants to hear the answers.

Mr. Callaghan: I was commenting that it is a little unfair that the Minister of Defence should have to face all this music, and I was wondering where the Minister of Aviation is and when he is going to resign.

Mr. Watkinson: As always, the hon. Member has it wrong. I welcome this decision. I welcome the opportunity of telling the House about it. I only hope that the House will listen to what I have to say, because, as the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) said, it is of considerable importance.
In the defence debate last year the balance just came down on the side of going on with the project, because at that time there was no suitable mobile alternative which had been proved. In the debate this year I was very careful to say that we had this question under examination and that I would report any decision to the House as soon as it was made. That is what I am now doing. It has been made on the best of technical and military advice. It is a right decision this year, as it would have been a wrong decision last year. If we are to keep the peace for an occasional expenditure of £60 million-odd, it is very cheap.

Mr. Birch: Is my right hon. Friend aware that for many years the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) was an enthusiastic supporter of Blue Streak? Will my right hon. Friend please give the assurance that, if Blue Streak is to be used as a vehicle for space research, before that decision is finally taken as good a costing as it is possible to make will be set before the House so that we can have a chance of deciding whether we think it is worth the price or not?

Mr. Watkinson: My right hon. Friend is perfectly correct. This is one of the issues which would have to be most carefully examined before a final decision was made. It was not possible to make it at this stage because of the very fact he has raised, that we cannot make accurate costings until we have had these examinations with the firms and interests involved.

Mr. Chetwynd: As the original decision to go ahead with Blue Streak was made on the best military and technical advice, and as the decision to end it was made on the best military and technical advice, who are these advisers and what kind of advice are they giving? Is it not clear that we stand no better chance of getting a more successful weapon from these people in future than we have in the past? In view of the fantastic loss of money, have we not lost three years' development in this field?

Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member should pay more attention to defence debates. He would then realise that in the last three years the entire strategic concept in regard to missiles has completely changed.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Will my right hon. Friend give very special consideration to the anxiety which the decision which he has just announced will cause to the very large number of skilled men employed on the project? Will he give special consideration to the large numbers who moved deliberately to Bracknell New Town on the strength of a Government assurance that this was a new project which would not be cancelled? Will he consult very urgently with his appropriate colleagues to provide alternative orders for those who have acted on the strength of a Government assurance?

Mr. Watkinson: I do not accept my ban. Friend's remarks about pledges, because I am not aware of them. As to the employment position, that is why I wished to make this announcement at the earliest possible moment, and I have done so. Fortunately, scientific manpower is in very short supply and I do not think there will be great difficulties about employment.

Mr. Grimond: May I warmly congratulate the Minister on his splendid rejection of his predecessor's policy? May I ask whether he does not feel that some inquiry into this waste of £65 million of public money is justified? If the Ministry of Defence has only just discovered the vulnerability of missiles launched from static sites, it is far behind what most people discovered a long time ago. Surely some inquiry is justified. Will the right hon. Gentleman give up the pretence that at this late date Blue Streak has some particular value as a launcher of space satellites and also give up this preposterous policy of an independent British deterrent?

Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member had better study defence matters a little more carefully.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. One at a time, please.

Mr. Watkinson: What I mean is this. The hon. Member has said—and it is a perfectly proper point to make—that this decision could have been made, and the right hon. Member for Belper said it should have been made, twelve months ago. Decisions on this matter are inevitably very difficult to take and are delicately poised. On them depends the peace of the world.
I make no apology for trying to study this carefully before coming to what I quite accept is a major decision. Therefore, what I mean by my answer is that these matters of defence must be studied very carefully, particularly in a rapidly changing strategic situation, and that before one comes to a decision one must be quite certain that it plays its part in trying to keep the peace. This present decision does that by maintaining the validity of the deterrent in a world in which the missile concept has

shifted from a static concept to a mobile one, but only in comparatively recent months.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Is it not a fact that even those who criticise Blue Streak have recognised that this is by no means the first great project which has been abandoned and is unlikely to be the last and that, as in the case of the Brabazon aircraft, the Princess flying boats and the Swift fighter, the knowledge and experience gained in this research need not be wasted? Could my right hon. Friend give an assurance that nothing will be done which will lose this country's present leading position in missile development?

Mr. Watkinson: The answer—and I apologise that I did not answer the previous supplementary question about space—is a very important one. The Americans have invested and are investing an immense sum of money in space research, both for its military and scientific and industrial value. At the moment we can only get into space by the American offer to launch British satellites under their terms. Therefore, Blue Streak, which, in conjunction with Black Knight, is a possible space launching vehicle—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Well, at least the Black Knight rocket has a record of firings which is practically 100 per cent. perfect. This combination might give us experience of space which might be of the utmost military and scientific value. If we do this, then very little of the present money spent on research and development and the present production will be wasted.

Mr. Hale: Would the Minister tell us what was the original estimate of the cost of Blue Streak, when he became aware that he was contemplating a sum of over £500 million of public money, when he informed the House for the first time that the development of Blue Streak would be likely to cost more than £500 million and—in view of his observation that, after all, the loss of £65 million is not much—will he call the attention of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to the views of the Government on the expendtiure of public money in other fields? Will he bear in mind that what the Ministry wants at the moment is not a deterrent, but a detergent?

Mr. Watkinson: The general cost of the full development of the weapon, the sum I have quoted of between £500 million and £600 million, has been known for a considerable period. It is the inevitable cost, and anyone could judge it by the cost of comparable American weapons. As to whether £65 million is the right point or not at which to stop, all I say is that the £65 million spent on the project will not be wasted if it is decided to use it as a space launching vehicle. In addition, even if it were not, a large proportion of that money puts us into missile technology which will be most valuable for any further development that we decide to carry out.

Mr. Farey-Jones: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that to properly informed—and, I repeat, properly informed—Members of the House this will be regarded as a calamitous decision? Would my right hon. Friend also bear in mind that this is not a question of financial expenditure, but is a question of Commonwealth participation in scientific progress in the next one hundred years compared with which £65 million is a bagatelle?
Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the result of this decision is to put British scientific progress in the exploration of outer space in pawn to the United States for the next twenty-five to fifty years? Will he also bear in mind that this not only affects this island, but a vital part of the Commonwealth? Will he give a guarantee, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, that this will not exclude British insular participation in the scientific exploration of outer space.

Mr. Watkinson: I have just answered the last half of my hon. Friend's supplementary by saying that an immediate investigation is going on now into the possibilities of space research based on this missile. I am very glad that my hon. Friend spoke about cost, because I want to make it quite plain that this decision was not taken on the grounds of cost or trying to save a large sum of money, but on the best military and technical advice at present available to me.

Mr. Speaker: Would hon. Members be good enough to clear the Bar?

Hon. Members: No, no.

Mr. Gaitskell: On a point of order. Are we debarred from continuing the questioning of the Minister on this very vital issue? Can we not continue to do so until we choose to allow the representative of the other place to enter?

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members are not debarred. I myself made an error, because my view was a little obscured and I thought that matters had progressed further than, in fact, they had. However, we shall be interrupted in the process.

Mr. Gaitskell: In that case, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that his replies to our supplementary questions strike this side of the House as being deplorably complacent, that to us at least the waste of £65 million is a very serious matter, and that the case for an inquiry into this whole matter appears to us to be overwhelming? Will he at least give us some reason why such an inquiry should not take place? Failing any satisfaction from the Minister of Defence, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he will find time for a very early debate on this matter?

Mr. Watkinson: That is a matter which the right hon. Gentleman has to decide for himself. What I have done is what I pledged myself to do in the defence debate—to bring major defence decisions of this nature to the House as quickly as possible and to endeavour to explain the reasons lying behind them. I have done that. In my view, that is not a complacent attitude. It is trying to tell the House the facts, if hon. Members are willing to listen to them.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Minister aware, however, that whatever his personal position may be in this matter the Government as a whole cannot escape responsibility for the earlier decisions? May I again press upon him our demand for an inquiry?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. G. Brown: If the Minister does not feel able to go further, will the Leader of the House answer the point about giving time for a debate in which the House may itself discuss the desirability of having an inquiry?

Mr. Watkinson: I am perfectly willing to answer, but I thought that we would be interrupted by another matter. All that I would say at the moment is that I am quite prepared to go on answering questions which you, Mr. Speaker, will allow and which disclose the full facts. I have said that the further progress of this missile has to be examined in the context of space research, and, therefore, no inquiry is necessary.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Members: Lock the doors.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Members: No.

ROYAL ASSENT

4.6 p.m.

Whereupon The GENTLEMAN-USHER OF THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message—

The Gentleman-Usher of the Black Rod: Mr. Speaker—

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Speaker: I would ask hon. Members to consult the dignity of the House and to assist me at this time in the maintenance of order. Our matters can, without inconvenience, and I hope with due courtesy to everybody concerned, be considered when we have dealt with this matter.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. First Offenders (Scotland) Act, 1960.
2. Pawnbrokers Act, 1960.
3. War Damage (Clearance Payments) Act, 1960.
4. Iron and Steel (Financial Provisions) Act, 1960.
5. Gas Act, 1960.
6. Legal Aid Act, 1960.
7. Marriage (Enabling) Act, 1960.
8. Glasgow Corporation Consolidation (General,, Powers) Order Confirmation Act, 1960.

And to the following Measure passed under the provisions of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919;

Church Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure, 1960.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall now proceed in due order. There was rather a lot of noise at the time, and I may be wrong, but I rather think that, as I resorted to other duties, it was the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) who was on his feet, seeking to raise a point of order. If that is wrong, I do not want to hear the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Oram: I was about to raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker, apparently at an inappropriate moment. Since the ceremony which takes place outside the closed doors is to indicate that this House admits here only those people whom it wishes to admit, ought we not, equally, to have the right to admit them only at a time suitable to the House?

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Has it not always been held that the admission of Black Rod on such occasions is by the consent of the House? Has it not always been in accordance with our traditions that the consent of the House means the consent of every hon. Member, as it does on the withdrawal of a Motion, the withdrawal of an Amendment, or the right to speak a second time? If any hon. Member of the House says "No", does that not mean that the House has not given its consent?
On this occasion, I think that I heard more than one shout of "No". With great respect, Sir, I submit to you that that meant that the House had, at any rate for the time being, withheld its consent, and, if the House withheld its consent, then Black Rod had no right here and all subsequent proceedings were out of order.
Unless you felt ready to do so, Sir, I should not ask for a considered opinion on so unusual a point at such short notice, but I respectfully submit that there is a point of substance here which might be worth your consideration and a statement to the House at some other time.

Mr. Callaghan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to follow the point which has been made by reminding you—I do not suppose that you will have had time to look it up— that on 24th May, 1855, there was a discussion in the House about the procedure then followed by which their Lordships used to send messages to interrupt our business here and we used to do the same. Everyone decided, by common consent, that it was really rather unfortunate to do that if business was in process and, therefore, the practice was discontinued, except for certain occasions laid down in Erskine May.
May I, therefore, follow the point of order put to you, Sir, by asking whether it would be a good thing to reconsider this procedure which can—and, on this occasion, did—occur at a moment when we really are at a crucial point in our discussions?

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I now call the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), on the understanding that we are still pursuing the same point of order.

Mr. C. Pannell: I think that it would be unfair, Mr. Speaker, to ask you to reply at once to a further supplementary point. You will obviously make a statement at some time in the future about this matter. I think, however, that you did use words, Sir, if I heard you correctly, which asked the House to consult its dignity. With very great respect, I think that those words were a trifle unfortunate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Nobody is more respectful to Mr. Speaker, or more devoted to the traditions of this House, than I. I am putting a point to Mr. Speaker, and it does not reflect on him. I submit to you, Sir, that your words were a trifle unfortunate inasmuch as the House consults its dignity best when it upholds the ancient traditions of the House.
There is, of course, the precedent going back to 1641 for this great tradition on which the ceremony giving rise to these points is based, and on which this House rests. I submit, with very great respect, on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), that the House, in moments of stress or argument, or when it thinks that it has more impor-

tant matters to discuss, can assert its right to exclude the representative of the Monarch. This does not necessarily mean any disrespect to the Monarch; it means merely that the House keeps its priorities right.
I ask you. Mr. Speaker, to consider that point when you give your Ruling later on this matter. It has, I believe, concerned a great many hon. Members of the House. You will have noticed that, as a protest, the great majority of hon. Members on the Opposition back benches remained in their places. After all, back bench Members have a degree of freedom which cannot be practised by the Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. Chetwynd: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask how these arrangements are made between the two Houses so that we may know in future how this takes place? Is it not right that, at a time like this, Blue Streak and Black Knight should have priority over Black Rod?

Mr. Speaker: I think that this is a convenient moment for me to say a word. First of all, on the strict constitutional position in this matter, it is, I think, clearly desirable that I should take advice, consider it, and say something, if necessary.
As regards my own part in the matter, I imagine that what happens nowadays is that mutual consultation takes place about what is convenient for the two Houses. On behalf of this House, in the ordinary way, the Chair is asked, courteously, whether it would be convenient to this House to receive a Commission at a given hour on a given day, fitting in with mutual arrangements. For my part, I did not like the first suggestion, and the time finally arranged for this particular day represented what I had hoped would be a convenient compromise for this House. Of course, it turned out to be the most inconvenient possible moment. It is terribly difficult to estimate beforehand with any accuracy how much Blue Streak, or whatever it may be, will flash.
I hope that the House will regard me as one by nature enthusiastic for the support of the Privilege of this House against anybody else or any other place. If, this day, in what, after all, if I may say so, was not the quietest moment, I


did a little, in seeking peace for the entertainment of the guest already on the Floor, go a little faster than the House meant me then to go, I apologise to the House.
May we now get on with our business? There is a great deal to do. I forget precisely where we were. One or other of the Ministers had failed to answer a question, I think.

LONG-RANGE BALLISTIC MISSILE (BLUE STREAK)

Mr. G. Brown: If I may respectfully say so, Mr. Speaker, I think the point was that they had all failed to answer anything at all satisfactorily.
May I now ask whether the Minister of Defence has given further thought, in the interim, to the idea of having an inquiry, and whether he will now undertake to discuss the setting up of such a body?

Mr. Watkinson: I am only too anxious to answer that, and I am sorry if I got rather mixed up in the other proceedings of the House. I said at the end, and I should like to say again, that I am only too anxious that all the very difficult considerations which surround missile policy of all kinds should be fully exposed. That is my wish, and, if the matter is debated in the House at any time, no one would welcome more than I the chance of putting the full facts before the House.
That is the first reason. I think that it will help the House if I give the reasons, which I have been turning over in my mind while we had a short break in our proceedings.
The second one is that this is not an outright cancellation of this missile. It is a statement that the missile is not now to be developed for military purposes. It has not, in any case, reached the point where it can be developed for military purposes for a number of years yet. What I have said is that we are now going to look very carefully into the question of whether it can be diverted into a vehicle for space research. When that decision is taken, it will, obviously, have to be communicated to the House and that will give a further opportunity for examination of the, whole position. In the meantime, with the best will in the

world, as one who wants all the facts to be known—as I say, it would be to the advantage of the Government—I do not think that an inquiry would serve any useful purpose at all.

Mr. Brown: In view of that most unsatisfactory reply, which seemed to imply that some continuing expenditure will go on even after to-day's announcement, would this be the moment, Mr. Speaker, for me to give you notice that I shall shortly ask your permission to raise the matter on the Adjournment?

Mr. Speaker: I shall receive it in due course, but there is another statement on the way.
As regards this matter, I hope that I can have the assistance of the House, because there is no Question before it.

Mr. Bowles: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have often protested at Ministerial leaks to the Press, yet almost every newspaper this morning, as all hon. Members know, carried this information. May I ask you, Sir, to find out from the Minister of Defence how the newspapers knew all about this matter in the early morning?

Sir K. Pickthorn: How did the Opposition Front Bench know?

Mr. Speaker: With respect, I do not think that the point raised by the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) is a point of order. No doubt, what the hon. Member has said will have been heard.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I should like the assistance of the House. There is no Question before it. I will receive the application of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) in due course. I am not wearing an encouraging face, for reasons which will be apparent in due course.

Later—

Mr. G. Brown: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I beg to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the cancellation of the Blue Streak missile project after the expenditure of £65 million of the taxpayers' money and the refusal by the Government of an inquiry into the circumstances leading up to this decision.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the cancellation of the Blue Streak missile project after the expenditure of £65 million of the taxpayers' money and the refusal by the Government of an inquiry into the circumstances leading up to this decision.
I regret that I cannot accede to the right hon. Gentleman's application. I do not think that it falls within the Standing Order.

Mr. Gaitskell: In view of your decision, Mr. Speaker, I beg to give notice that the Opposition will table a Motion of censure on the Government tonight.

UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA (CITIZENS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND COLONIES)

The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House I would like to make a statement.
As I informed the House on 5th April, the United Kingdom High Commissioner has been keeping in close touch with the Government of the Union of South Africa with regard to the rights and interests of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who have been arrested as a result of the emergency in that country. I subsequently gave the House, on 7th April, details of the report of the visit of the High Commissioner's representative to Miss Stanton, in Pretoria Prison.
Since then the High Commissioner has informed my noble Friend that the Supreme Court at Pretoria has given judgment that Miss Stanton has the right to consult her legal advisers, subject to any rules applicable from time to time at the place of detention. The Union Government have been pressed for details of the charges against Miss Stanton. Miss Stanton has also been seen by her brother.
A representative of the High Commissioner has also visited Dr. Elias Letele, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, in Kimberley Prison, and has found him in good health and well treated. He has requested the Union

authorities to allow Dr. Letele to consult a lawyer without delay and to accord him certain other facilities. The High Commissioner has also asked the Union authorities the details of the charges on which Dr. Letele is detained.
The High Commissioner is keeping in touch with the Union Government on both these cases with a view to obtaining an early decision regarding their release or their appearance before the courts of justice.
The High Commissioner is also in touch with the Union Government with a view to ascertaining whether any of the other arrested persons is a United Kingdom citizen and not also a Union national. It has now been confirmed that Miss Blumberg is a citizen of the Union of South Africa and not of the United Kingdom.
A limited number of persons have entered the High Commission Territories including, as the House is aware, Mr. Segal and Mr. Tambo. Both the latter are in the Bechuanaland Protectorate and there is no objection to them remaining there. I think that the House would wish to know that the High Commissioner is being given powers of discretion in relation to immigration into the Protectorates of Bechuanaland and Swaziland broadly similar to those which the Home Secretary possesses in the United Kingdom.
The Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, Dr. Reeves, arrived in Swaziland early this month and from there asked the High Commissioner to discover whether the Union authorities intended to arrest him or to detain him under the emergency regulations, if he returned to the Union.
The High Commissioner has approached the Union Government for information which he thinks may assist the bishop in determining his future course of action, and in the light of the exchanges which he has had with South African Ministers has been in touch with the bishop. It will, of course, be for Dr. Reeves to reach his own decision whether to return to the Union or not.
The services of the High Commissioner will continue to be available to any person in the Union of South Africa whose status and circumstances warrant it.

Mr. Marquand: While welcoming the announcement that the High Commissioner now has adequate powers to ensure that persons who had committed no crime whatever and who had entered the High Commission Territories will not be sent back, may we have an equally categorical assurance that such persons are free to leave and go to any other country they wish if they so desire?
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he has really told us nothing more about Miss Stanton and Dr. Letele than he told us a week ago? We know that the High Commissioner is keeping in touch with the Union Government, but we know no more. Has not the situation passed altogether beyond the desirability of keeping in touch? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that no charges whatever had been preferred against Miss Stanton or Dr. Letele, both persons of high repute, and will he not now follow the very good example set by Canada and demand their immediate release?

Mr. Alport: First, as far as I know, there is no obstacle to anyone leaving the Protectorate that he is in provided that he is in possession of the requisite travel documents. Let me add to that. It is not, of course, necessary for them to be in possession of these documents simply for the process of leaving the Protectorate.
Secondly, I fully realise the concern of hon. Members on both sides of the House about the position of Miss Stanton and Dr. Letele. Everything that I have heard about both of them testifies to their high character and, in the case of Miss Stanton, her long record of Christian work in the Union.
The points which the right hon. Gentleman has made have been drawn to the attention of the Union authorities by the High Commissioner, and we hope that they will be effective in ensuring that to both these individuals full justice and proper treatment is accorded. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman, however, that their cases are not immediately parallel with that of Mr. Phillips, the Canadian national. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that the decision in the case of Mr. Phillips was, in fact, not only to release him, but to deport him, which, in the case of the two individuals concerned, may be a very different matter.

Mr. Marquand: We are not suggesting that these people can be deported. What the House of Commons would like to say —I believe that the whole House of Commons is with me on this, looking, as I do, at the faces opposite—is that these two United Kingdom citizens, charged with no crime whatsoever, have been imprisoned far too long already and ought now to be out.

Mr. Alport: I fully recognise that. The right hon. Gentleman and I were both present at the debate on Friday when we dealt with this difficult and grave problem, as a House of Commons, with great restraint, sympathy and understanding. I assure the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members on both sides of the House that we fully recognise the force of what they feel about these two cases.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my hon. Friend aware that, despite the order of the Supreme Court of Africa that Miss Stanton should be able to see her legal advisers, there were Press reports yesterday that she was in solitary confinement and had not, in fact, yet been allowed to see her legal advisers? Is he further aware that there is a great deal of sympathy in this country for Miss Stanton? I have had a great many letters testifying to her high Christian character. Would he press the High Commissioner in South Africa, as no charge has been made against her, to ask that she should at least be allowed out on bail?

Mr. Alport: I do not think that the High Commissioner needs pressing in this matter. Indeed, on the instructions of my noble Friend, he has taken very direct action in regard to these two cases with the South African authorities. On the question of solitary confinement, it is perfectly true that this lady is confined alone in a room, or cell, on her own. I thought, originally, that perhaps the privacy which that entailed might have been of some advantage to her. I fully understand my hon. Friend's point that if this is in any way regarded as solitary confinement it would be a very different matter indeed.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: Is it right that these British subjects should be denied access to a legal representative, kept in durance vile without charge, without an emphatic protest by Her Majesty's Government on the Floor of the House?

Mr. Alport: I have already said that the House and the Government regard this matter with great seriousness. So far as our contacts with the South African authorities through the High Commissioner in the Union are concerned, I can assure the House that there need be no doubt but that the Union authorities realise the concern which is felt here about these two cases. I have already said, and I am sure that the House will accept, that these cases are not necessarily parallel with that of Mr. Phillips, but I am sure that the expression of view which has been included in this exchange will further add to the purpose and views of the representations which have been made.

Mr. Callaghan: Can I ask the Minister of State a perfectly straightforward question? Has the High Commissioner asked for the release of the British subjects who have been detained without charge? If he has not yet done so, will the Minister of State instruct him to do so immediately?

Mr. Alport: Our anxiety is to get urgently �ž[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I am answering the question. We are trying to get a statement of the charges which are made against these two individuals. If, in the circumstnaces, they are not forthcoming, I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that further representations will be made.

Mr. Callaghan: Why has the Minister of State waited for a fortnight? Miss Stanton was arrested on 30th March. No charges have yet been forthcoming in the 14 days which have elapsed. If the South African Government have been unable to construct charges in that period, why cannot the Minister of State tell the House that he will protest to the South African Government and ask for their release?

Mr. Alport: I have already said to the hon. Gentleman that the views of the Government on this matter have been made perfectly clear to the South African Government. Our anxiety—and the High Commissioner's anxiety—duffing the whole of this period has been to do everything he possibly could to help these United Kingdom citizens. It was not a question of our waiting for any lapse of time. As soon as it was possible to ascertain that they had been arrested, the High Commissioner took immediate

action in accordance with the instructions of my noble Friend.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I need the help of the House. We cannot debate these matters when there is no Question before us.

Mr. Gaitskell: There is one other matter arising out of the statement to which reference has not been made—the case of Miss Blumberg. Are we to understand from the Minister's statement that because it appears that she is a citizen of the Union of South Africa, and not of the United Kingdom, he therefore washes his hands of her affairs altogether, despite the fact that she represents a British newspaper and was arrested almost certainly because of her attempts to report to that newspaper what was happening in South Africa?

Mr. Alport: The right hon. Gentleman asked me about this lady in supplementary questions yesterday, and I told him that I would give him the information as soon as I possibly could. The fact is that she is a citizen of the Union and not even a dual citizen. We have no locus standi in this matter. I have no information to suggest that what the right hon. Gentleman said is borne out by the facts, that is, that the arrest of this lady was related to any contribution which she made to a newspaper here or anywhere else.

Mr. Gaitskell: Does the hon. Gentleman accept no responsibility for the position of the representative of a British newspaper in these circumstances? If he doubts what I said about her being arrested because of attempts to report, may I refer him to the reports of her arrest in the British newspapers? Will he at least make inquiries about the reasons for her arrest?

Mr. Alport: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, we had questions about this matter yesterday. I said, and I am sure that the House agreed, that we are concerned that no hindrance should be placed in the way of obtaining from the Union of South Africa, or anywhere else, accurate news of events taking place there. But this is the case of a particular citizen of the Union of South Africa and we are governed in this matter by the law, which is accepted generally, not only in the Commonwealth but elsewhere.
I know that at one point yesterday the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be rather impatient with the effect of the law in this matter, but, on reflection, he may agree that it is important that when, as in this case, we are dealing with the legal rights of individuals, if the Government's views are to carry weight and are to be effective, the Government must bear in mind their legal obligations as well.

Mr. Gaitskell: I am not concerned with the details of the legal position. I am asking the Minister of State whether he does not think it right that our High Commissioner should inquire why this representative of a British newspaper was arrested and whether it was because of what she was reporting about the events in South Africa; and whether he does not think it right that our High Commissioner should therefore protest about it.

Mr. Alport: Certainly, if there is no further information about it, I will make inquiries and let the right hon. Gentleman know.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I think I require the aid of the House. We cannot debate this matter now.

KENSINGTON, NORTH CONSTITUENCY (ELECTION PETITION)

Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House with the fact that I have received a Certificate and Report from the Judges appointed to try the Election Petition for the Kensington, North constituency, which Certificate and Report I now read:

"In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division.

The Representation of the People Act, 1949.

In the matter of the Parliamentary Election Petition for the Kensington, North Constituency (described in the Petition as the North Division of the Borough of Kensington) between Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, Baronet, Petitioner, and George Henry Roland Rogers and Arthur Newton Edward McHaffie, Respondents.

CERTIFICATE

To The Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.

We, Sir Geoffrey Hugh Benbow Streatfeild, Knight, and Sir Gerald Osborne Slade, Knight, Judges of the High Court of Justice and two of the Judges on the Rota for the time being for the trial of Election Petitions in England and Wales

Do hereby certify in pursuance of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, that upon the 4th, 5th and 6th days of April, 1960, we duly held a Court at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, for the trial of and did try the Election Petition for the Kensington North Constituency (described in the Petition as the North Division of the Borough of Kensington) wherein Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, Baronet, was the Petitioner and George Henry Roland Rogers and Arthur Newton Edward McHaffie were the Respondents

And in further pursuance of the said Act We CERTIFY that at the conclusion of the said trial we determined that the said George Henry Roland Rogers, being the member whose Election and return were complained of in the said Petition was duly elected and returned

And whereas charges were made in the said Petition of Illegal Practices having been committed at the said election

We in further pursuance of the said Act report as follows:—

1. That no corrupt or illegal, practice has been proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge or consent of any candidate at the said election
2. That no person was proved at this trial to have been guilty of any corrupt or illegal practice
3. That corrupt or illegal practices were not proved to have nor have we reason to believe that corrupt or illegal practices have extensively prevailed at the said election or at all
4. That no candidate has been proved to have been guilty by his agents of any corrupt or illegal practice at the said election
5. That the following breaches of the Statutory provisions governing


Parliamentary Elections were admitted or proved:

(a) That three or possibly four persons voted without having their names marked off on the register. Each such person voted once only.
(b) That two persons neither authorised nor permitted to attend the counting of the votes and who did not therefore make the declaration of secrecy qua the Kensington North Constituency were allowed to go into the room where the count took place

6. That notwithstanding the said breaches the said Election was conducted substantially in accordance with the Statutory provisions governing elections and that the result of the Election was not affected thereby

We further report that there was no evidence to support any of the remaining allegations in the Petition, or that there was any breach of the law as to elections as therein alleged

A copy of the Evidence and of our Judgment taken by the Deputies of the Shorthand Writer to the House of Commons accompanies this our Certificate

Signed (Geoffrey Streatfeild)

(Gerald O. Slade)

Dated the 11th day of April, 1960."

Pursuant to Statute, I shall lay upon the Table of the House this Certificate and Report and the shorthand writer's note, and will cause the required entry to be made in the Journal.

Said Certificate and Report ordered to be entered in the Journals of this House.

Copy of Shorthand Writer's notes laid upon the Table by Mr. SPEAKER.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[10TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1960–61

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £30, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961, for the following services relating to Retirement Pensions, namely:—

CIVIL ESTIMATES

£


Class X. Vote 2 (Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance)
10


Class X, Vote 4 (National Insurance and Family Allowances)
10


Class X, Vote 5 (National Assistance Board)
10


Total
£30

Orders of the Day — RETIREMENT PENSIONS

4.52 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: There are obvious disadvantages in beginning a debate after the exciting time we have just had, but I believe there is one advantage that we on this side have, and that is that we have some idea of the value attached to money by Her Majesty's Government.
We have taken this opportunity of again raising the question of pensions and benefits, because during the debates on the Budget last week both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury found it necessary and desirable to reaffirm the pledges which the Government gave, or, to put it more accurately, which the party opposite gave in the election and which the Chancellor reaffirmed during the debate on the Budget.
As a kind of text for this debate, I should like to quote the pledge given during the election and reaffirmed by the Chancellor last week. In an election T.V. broadcast on 23rd September, 1959, during the General Election, the Home


Secretary gave this undertaking and pledge:
We give an undertaking to the old-age pensioners that, not only will we maintain the rate of pension in relation to the cost of living, but "—
I call attention to these words to which I shall refer later—
We also say that you will take your share of the rising prosperity of the country.
That was reaffirmed by the Chancellor in winding up the debate on the Budget. He said:
Our election pledge was perfectly clear. We said that we would ensure that pensioners would continue to share in the rising prosperity of the nation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 7th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 696.]
Those are the words. We now await the deeds. Today, the Minister has an opportunity of telling us when we can expect the redemption of that pledge given during the election and reaffirmed by the Chancellor last week. The pledge is now six months old, and I think it is time that it was redeemed.
I propose to raise two aspects of this problem. These debates tend to become arguments between both sides of the House about what happened in 1951, and 1066 and all that. If I fall into the temptation with the Minister, who is a poacher turned gamekeeper and revels in this kind of argument—I observe that his right hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is following in his train—I do so, not for the purpose of discussing the past, which I am willing to do, but because what has happened in the past is relevant to an obligation which the Minister has, not this evening, but this year.
This is a very important year in the life of the National Insurance Act, with which I had something to do. This debate is being held at a time when, in accordance with the obligations placed upon the Government under the Act, the Minister will shortly have to report to this House. At the end of five-yearly periods —one five-year period I think is now at an end—the Actuary, by the Act, is under an obligation to present an actuarial report to the Minister and to Parliament concerning the National Insurance Fund —contributions, benefits, provisions, and so on. When that report has been received by the Minister—I understand that he expects it in the very near future—he has an obligation under Section 40 of the

Act, which is, having received the quinquennial report of the Actuary, to
review the rates and amounts of benefit in relation to the circumstances at the time of insured persons in Great Britain, including in particular the expenditure which is necessary for the preservation of health and working capacity.
Before the Minister prepares his report, I want to raise some very important issues which are relevant to the case which we are making. Fourteen years ago the House of Commons gave its unanimous approval, without a Division, to the National Insurance Bill, which became the National Insurance Act, 1946. That Measure was designed to implement the recommendations of the Beveridge Report. Certain cardinal principles were laid down in the Report, which the House accepted and which it was sought to embody in the provisions' of that Measure. Here I quote the words of the Beveridge Report, because they are important:
This scheme of social insurance is designed of itself to guarantee the income needed for subsistence in all normal cases.
Sir William Beveridge, in his Report, said that it would be, particularly for a transitional period, essential to support the National Insurance scheme by a system of National Assistance, but he laid down clearly that, whereas National Assistance would play a subsidiary rôle in supplementing benefits for a period, it would be a diminishing rôle that would eventually disappear, and that the scope of assistance
will be narrowed from the beginning and will diminish throughout the transition period.
Fourteen years ago we agreed that this scheme should be established in which benefit would be, as of right, based on contributions, and that the benefits by themselves and of themselves would be adequate for subsistence and that recourse would be had to the National Assistance Board only in respect of residual and exceptional cases.
We can argue about who did what and who is wrong, but the fact is that our hopes have not been fulfilled. The last report which we had from the Minister was unworthy of the obligation placed upon him by the Act. We shall all be very disappointed if we do not have a very full report from the Minister and have adequate time in the House to review the whole of this matter.
Those were the hopes. What are the facts? First, it is now quite clear that we have failed under the National Insurance Act to provide benefits for pensioners, sick people, unemployed, and widows which, by themselves, are adequate. Secondly, far from diminishing, the rôle and scope of assistance in our social security scheme is increasing and becoming enlarged all the time. This is a very important matter which deserves the full attention of the Committee and is related to the problem of pensioners and beneficiaries.
I should like to give the Committee the facts and to quote from the latest full Report of the National Assistance Board which is available to hon. Members, the Report for 1958 published in June, 1959. Appendix III on page 43 gives these facts about the percentages of households receiving National Insurance benefits which are also receiving National Assistance:


"Retirement pensions
20·4


Sickness benefit
11·6


Widow's benefits
11·6


Unemployment benefits
19·1"


One in five of all our pensioners who have earned their pensions by their own contributions. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, I am using the term within the meaning of the Act. There are, of course, contributions from the State and the employer. Let us then say that they are contributions credited to him as well as paid by him. We will not argue about that.
One in five of these retirement pensioners are receiving assistance. One in nine of those who are sick, one in nine of the widows, and one in five of the unemployed who are entitled to benefit are also receiving supplementation. There is another figure wrapped up in the figure for sickness benefit. I understand that the figure for those here described as receiving sickness benefit and on assistance includes persons who receive injury benefit. I hope the Minister will tell us how many there are. I had the privilege of piloting both Acts through Parliament. If people who are entitled to receive injury benefits under the Industrial Injuries Act are also entitled to receive National Assistance, that Act needs looking at very seriously, too.
These are the last figures available in this form for the year ended 21st December, 1958 as published in this Annual Report. Yesterday, in a Written Answer in reply to me, the Minister gave up-to-date figures. His Parliamentary Secretary told me that:
At 29th March, 1960, the number of weekly National Assistance grants paid as supplements to retirement pensions and other benefits under the National Insurance Acts was 1,268,000 …".—(OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 122.]
These grants were paid in supplementation of the benefits which we had believed would be adequate. The same Answer stated that the 1,268,000 represented about 70 per cent. of all weekly assistance grants paid by the Board.
I should like to make a diversion for a moment or two before coming back to this subject. The amount of work which the National Assistance Board has now, apart from supplementing benefits, is very little. I only throw out some ideas on this now because time is short, but I am concerned about this matter, as I know also is the Minister. I have given thought to it and I throw out these ideas without arguing them now.
I would take the payment of supplements out of the hands of the National Assistance Board and transfer it to the local offices of the Ministry of National Insurance. That means 70 per cent. of the work, and if one adds non-contributory old-age pensions it means three-quarters of the work. I would abolish the Board as at present set up and provide that the Minister should have an advisory committee to advise him on this problem of assistance.
There remain 30 per cent. who are outside the scope of National Insurance and to whom grants rather than supplements are paid. I would reorganise the whole of that work in connection with the welfare work done by local authorities and make it paid welfare work throughout the country. I hope that we shall consider these suggestions when we receive the Minister's quinquennial report. No less than 70 per cent. of this work is due to the fact that we have all failed to keep our promise.
I will not bandy words. We have all failed and are responsible for the fact that 70 per cent. of those who are entitled to benefits, in respect of which many paid contributions long before 1946


or 1948, are also entitled to National Assistance. Millions of old-age pensioners, sick people and people who have been injured in industry have to seek assistance. This is something which we ought not to tolerate. These are matters on which the Minister will have to report. When he does, we shall expect him to deal with the problems. Therefore, I have submitted these ideas. I would ask the Minister to say something about them even today.
In the course of the discussions on the new graduated pensions scheme when the National Insurance Act was before Standing Committee A as a Bill, the Minister reaffirmed the Government's policy on the level of benefits and he said:
But, from the point of view of our philosophy, I am quite certain that the right level is somewhere related to a basic minimum. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 12th February, 1959; c. 50–51.]
I accept that as the Minister's view, but would he now accept that the present levels of benefits, in the light of the figures which I have quoted about assistance, are nowhere—not somewhere—related to a basic minimum? If the right hon. Gentleman believes that the benefit should be related to a basic minimum, will he tell us what he proposes to do about it? It is quite clear that they are not now so related.
The Minister may now say that the whole emphasis is shifted and that in future we are to have a new insurance scheme which provides subsistence pensions and sickness benefit and that we are to expect that once the new graduated pensions scheme comes into operation everything will be all right. He may say that we shall have a pension earned by graduated contributions, available to those covered on retirement, which they will have earned and will get as a right and which will bring them right above the assistance level.
I did not debate this matter, as some of my hon. Friends did, in Standing Committee, but I have studied it very carefully. The Bill is now an Act, and I believe that the country ought to face up to what is being done. The Minister's job is very interesting, but sometimes one gets criticism in it, and I must tell him from what I have seen of the scheme that he is "in for it." My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry,

East (Mr. Grossman) called the scheme "a swindle". I cannot think of better English.
I have already quoted figures about the present rôle of assistance, and I have said that, far from diminishing, it is increasing; and it will not end under this scheme. To begin with, in round figures, 15 million people will be outside the scheme altogether, so the Actuary tells us. There is nothing for the 5¼ million existing pensioners who are outside the scheme. For them there is the basic pension and assistance. Women earning below 9 a week are out, and there are 4¾ million of them at present. Men earning less than £9 a week are out, and at present there are 3 million of them. All the self-employed and non-employed are out—2 million. So 15 million persons in employment are outside this scheme. They will have to depend upon the flat rate and assistance. In other words, nearly half the working population of the country is outside the scheme.
Let us see what will happen to those who are inside the scheme. I will take one example from the document I have in my hand. I urge hon. Members to get a copy of it. The document is in the Library, provided by the Minister, and I thank him for it. It is called "Guide to the new graduated pensions scheme". It is document N.I. 111. I hope the Committee will follow me as I give this example which is taken from pages 6 and 7. It is in the table headed:
How the new scheme will work for people of various ages and different levels of the earnings. Contributions and benefits.
I take the example of a man earning £12 a week in 1961 who enters the scheme in that year at the age of 42. He will be 65 in an ominous year— 1984. I hope the Minister knows the significance of the date. This man will not be entitled to a pension until 1984 at the age of 65. What happens to him? First, contributions are paid by him and for him of 20s. 4d. a week, nearly double the total contribution under the 1946 Act. He himself will pay a contribution of 10s. 10d., more than double what he had to pay under the 1946 Act.
That is what he pays. Let us see now what he gets. If his earnings remain at £12 a week and he earns that amount every contributory week until


the year 1984, he and his wife will receive a pension of £4 10s., whereas on the present assistance rates he and his wife would receive £4 5s. plus the average rent payable by the Board, which according to the Report is 18s. 6d. a week—a total of £5 3s. 6d. a week. In other words, he can now receive 13s. 6d. a week more than he will be able to get from the graduated pension in 1984.
Frankly, I have not gone into this in great detail. Sometimes I have thought the language of my hon. Friends was extravagant, but now I believe that they have been far too modest. Does the Minister realise what will happen when people wake up to the fact that under the graduated pension scheme, at the end of twenty-three years of contribution, the pensioner will have to go and ask for assistance? This is not an insurance scheme, this is bedlam.

Mr. Arthur Tiley: It is very interesting to follow the figures, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that on the same wage of £12 a week the total contribution under the Socialist National Superannuation scheme was 24s. a week, not 20s. 4d. as in the Government scheme, and that even after forty-five years of membership of that scheme the pension would be £6.

Mr. Griffiths: We can discuss that afterwards. That is a scheme, and if there is anything wrong with it we can amend it. This is an Act of Parliament voted for by hon. Gentlemen opposite who were in the House last year. Therefore, they cannot tell their constituents that this is not a good thing. They can tell them, "This is an Act of Parliament. In April next year you will have to pay contributions at this level".
Returning to my example of the man earning £12 a week who enters the scheme in 1961, we hope his earnings will rise. So far as I can calculate, if his earnings increase at the rate of 2 per cent. per annum from 1961 until 1984, his pension for himself and his wife even then will be only £5; in other words, 3s. 6d. less than he can get from Assistance now.

Mr. F. Blackburn: And all those calculations are based on a pension of £2 10s. a week. Therefore, the Government ought to be

made to state whether they intend to increase it before 1961 or whether they are going to alter all the figures.

Mr. Griffiths: Exactly. I have raised this point because it is clear that, for a long time to come, for millions of people there will be no new graduated pension scheme, only the existing scheme, and therefore their hope lies in our raising the basic pension. Secondly, for large numbers of those covered by the new scheme assistance will still be a substantial part of their subsistence in 1984.
I am curtailing what I have to say, but I must say frankly to the Minister that I believe there will be a row when these facts come home to people. There is still time before April of next year. I say to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee that this is a matter of vital importance. I am sure hon. Members will agree than none of us will like to explain this to our constituents when they have to pay these contributions next April. So I ask the Minister, when he makes the review, seriously to consider whether in his own interests, and in the interests of the country, we should allow the scheme to go forward.
Now I will say a few words about the pledge to maintain the benefits in accordance with the cost of living. There is a change, and I welcome it. The pledge given by the party opposite when they fought the election was that the pensioners' should have a share in our prosperity. This is a new basis. I ask the Minister what he means by that. Let us get something other than words. I shall try to make some calculations. The Minister has told us in reply to questions put by hon. Members in the House that the real value of the 50s. pension today in terms of 1946 prices, when the pension was 26s., is 29s. l0d. I accept those figures, although there are some who doubt whether the calculation is right. For the purpose of my argument and for the purpose of my claim I will accept that.
I am going to accept, therefore, that in real terms pensioners are now 3s. l0d. per week better off than they were in 1946 when the 26s. was first paid. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the non-smokers? "] I agree that the non-smokers lose half of it. I am taking the Government's own figures. There are


some who doubt the validity of the figures, but I am accepting them. As I say, the increase is 3s. l0d. per week as compared with 1946. How are we to judge our prosperity on such figures?
I am not going to speak about dividends, profits and those sorts of things. We have already spoken about them. Regarding this affluent society of ours, someone has said that we are in danger of reaching a society in which there will be private affluence and public squalor. We are personally affluent and yet we are depriving our social services. I am not going to speak about Blue Streak and the £65 million and all the rest of it. The Minister of Defence spoke in very light-hearted terms this afternoon about £65 million. I am, therefore, going to relate the pensions and benefits, an increase in real value of 3s. l0d. a week since 1946, to what wage earners are getting.
This is not class warfare. I speak to my constituents, to my fellow miners and to everyone else with whom I am associated in this way. Here is the position. It means that since 1946 the real value of adult male earnings has increased by 47s. a week.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): In terms of prices of what year?

Mr. Griffiths: In terms of prices of 1946. They are the figures which the Minister himself used. He said that in terms of 1946 prices the pension today is worth 29s. l0d. and, therefore, worth 3s. 10d. a week more than in 1946. I am not afraid to say this to my own people, for I am a believer in the contributory system. I want the contribution to be fair between employers, workers and the State. I want to see them put back into the position in which they were in 1946
Are we to say that the real share of our prosperity which we are going to give to pensioners, sick people, disabled people, widows and others on National Assistance is to be only 3s. 10d.? If we gave them an increase strictly on the basis of the increase enjoyed by wage earners, then, on the figures given by the Minister in answer to Questions, it would mean that the basic pension would be increased by 8s. 4d. a week.
The Minister answered another question and said that the cost of raising benefits and pensions to this level would be £160 million per annum. That would be the cost of raising to this standard the pensions and benefits paid to people whose work in the past has made a very great contribution to the possibility of higher earnings. I am one of that generation who are now pensioners. True, I am not yet a pensioner, but I am of that generation which came to young manhood in 1914, which stood, suffered and survived in the 1920s and 1930s, which stood when the world fell apart in 1940 and which has worked since 1945.
Are all of us who are in work to say that the share of the pensioners of our prosperity shall be only 3s. l0d. a week while for the average worker it is to be 47s. a week? Are we to say that this country cannot afford £160 million in order to put the pensioners on the same level? I do not believe that any one of us wants to give that answer. I hope that the Minister will not give that answer, and that he will today begin to redeem his pledge and give the answer which we all want him to give and which the country wants him to give in the debate tonight.

5.25 p.m.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): Let me, first, because I think that it is nearly two years since the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) took part in one of these debates, welcome him back to them. I make no complaint that this debate follows very shortly after that of 16th March. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee are properly and deeply concerned with these matters, and I am always very glad when the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends arrange for such a debate, though, like him, I regret that he and I and those of the rest of us who have the good fortune to take part find the time for our observations inevitably curtailed by events over which we have no control.
I will, first, because I must use the limited time at my disposal as economically as possible in the interests of the Committee, deal quickly with one or two of the right hon. Gentleman's opening remarks. The right hon. Gentleman was the author of the quinquennial review,


so he naturally, on the whole, gave an accurate account of the procedure, though I am sure he will allow me to say that he slipped on one point. The Government Actuary does not report to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance but to the Treasury, whose duty it is to lay the report before Parliament. I can tell the Committee that the Government Actuary has not finished the review, though I understand that he is well forward with it. As I said in reply to a Question a little while ago, there is no intention other than to follow the procedure laid down in the National Insurance Act, 1946.
The right hon. Gentleman spent a good deal of the earlier part of his speech referring to the number of cases in which recipients of National Insurance benefits were receiving a supplement through the National Assistance Board. The right hon. Gentleman will know that, as a proportion of the whole, the numbers receiving that supplement have remained extraordinarily steady through the years. Indeed, the latest figure available for December, 1959, shows in respect of retirement pensioners a percentage of 21·8 compared with 22·7 in December, 1951. As far as sickness benefit is concerned, the latest figure is 14 per cent. compared with 15 per cent. for the same date in 1951; and in the case of widows it is a great deal less, being 13·7 per cent. as compared with 23·1 per cent. in 1951. So the rôle of assistance in our social services has not changed, and this, I think, contradicts materially some of the assumptions of the right hon. Gentleman for the years since he was responsible. That is the more satisfactory when one recalls the fact that a very significant change was made last September.
As the Committee will be aware from our debates last summer, the changes in National Assistance which were made then were unique in the history of National Assistance. All the previous changes had been made to take account, with a small favourable margin, of changes in prices. The change made last summer departed from that. There was, indeed, on strict cost of living grounds, no particular reason for a change. The change made then involved a positive increase in the real standards of Assistance in order, if I may use words not unfamiliar to the Committee, to give to the poorest section of the community a

share in that community's increasing wealth.
That change, as the Committee will remember, was accompanied by an increase in the National Assistance disregards, thereby bringing more people with modest savings within the possibility of applying successfully for assistance. When the Committee recalls that the real standards of assistance were advanced and the eligibility for it widened by an increase in the disregards, it becomes, I think, clear that the right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in building the suggestion for there being quite a substantial change in the rôle of National Assistance in our social services on the foundation that the percentage of this supplement is only a little less than it was in 1951.

Mr. J. Griffiths: That is not my case. I am putting the case for all. It is this. When we began the scheme our view was that National Assistance should not keep its then rôle but that it should have a diminishing rôle and finally disappear. That is my case.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman says that, and, of course, it would have been easy to have appeared to bring that about if we had kept National Assistance and the National Assistance disregards down to the original level. What I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has grasped is that the improvement which the Committee and the House welcomed when we took the Regulations and the Bill last summer has given somewhere between £30 million and £40 million a year extra to the poorest section of our community, and must have the effect, if it operates at all, of increasing the proportion of cases in which other benefits are supplemented by assistance. It is, therefore, important to appreciate the deliberate improvement of the conditions and standards of the poorest of the poor which the Committee and the House saw fit to authorise last year.
I am not, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, going to spend my time in discussing his proposals for the reorganisation of the Board, except to point out to him—it was, no doubt, a slip of the tongue on his part—that of course neither assistance nor retirement pensions are actually directly paid by the Board or by my Department, but


both are paid at the counter at the post office.
I do not think—and this is a point which has been looked at and discussed many times—that the idea of abolishing the Board with its discretion to meet individual needs would really be a constructive and forward step in social policy, and I am rather sorry that the right hon. Gentleman, as the author of the Board in its present form, should seek to commit infanticide upon it.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman will know that I did not create the Board with the thought that 70 per cent. of its work would be supplementation of insurance benefits.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman had in mind, but if he contemplated the effect and the consequences of the universality of National Insurance which the 1946 Act brought about he must, I think, have appreciated that by the scope of the Act a very large measure of supplementation of those benefits, as part of a universal system, in due course would be inevitable.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he would not refer to Blue Streak, so, with similar kindliness, I will not refer to the Princess or the Brabazon or the Swift or any of the curiously-named bits of apparatus which could enliven problems of this sort.
I want to come back to the right hon. Gentleman's central point. He made considerable play with the 3s. l0d. which, he appreciates, is the figure he arrived at only by adopting 1946 prices. He appreciates, and the Committee appreciates, that we think now in terms of 1960 prices, and in terms of 1960 prices the figure is, in fact, 6s. 2d. I think it is important for the record that that should be made clear.
What the right hon. Gentleman did, I think, dodge was this. When he moved the Second Reading of the National Insurance Bill in 1946 he described the 26s. level embodied in it as giving
a broad subsistence basis". — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1742.]
He now comes to this Committee and criticises us for maintaining a level which is—whatever else we may argue about—

a level appreciably above that which he himself commended to Parliament as giving a broad subsistence basis. I think it is important that we should conduct this discussion on the basis of what is now being suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, that standards admittedly better than those he was commending to Parliament ought further to be improved. That is a legitimate matter of argument.

Mr. J. Griffiths: What about the Government pledge?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am coming to the pledge.
That, as I was saying, is a legitimate matter of argument, but I think we can deal with it on this basis, that, without importing either emotion or exaggeration, we all appreciate that the level of contributions as well as benefits under the National Insurance scheme is a difficult and very important matter which we ought not—and here I agree with the right hon. Gentleman—to embitter by comparisons or tit-for-tats, and which we should deal with on the basis of admitted facts: that the benefits are better than they were, better in real terms than at any time before the change in January, 1958, and that what we have to discuss is when and to what extent yet further improvement may successfully be achieved.

Mr. Leslie Hale: The right hon. Gentleman keeps on talking as though the Government were paying the pensions. All this money is coming out of the National Insurance Fund, which has carried a profit year after year, at any rate on retirement pensions, and in respect of which the Government have diminished the Exchequer contribution in relation to the total sum going in— that is, on any sort of relevant percentage. What we are really asking is whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks that a country with twice the national income of seven or eight years ago still can say that it is not going to increase the Exchequer contribution.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. The Exchequer contribution happens to be at the highest level that it has ever reached, £170 million, and it happens to be the fact— and the hon. Gentleman compels me to recall it—that one of the necessities for amending legislation was that his right


hon. Friend left the National Insurance Fund with an increasing and, indeed, an unlimited deficit. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his observation, but in fairness to the Committee I must not allow myself to be further deflected by it.
I think that the right hon. Gentleman and many of his hon. Friends have really let themselves be deluded by their own propaganda on these subjects.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: What about the pensioners?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have studied the Budget debates, which, at times—I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me—seemed more like a pensions debate. For example, the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) said this:
Obviously, the time to have improved the conditions for pensioners was when the terms of trade were moving very much in our favour —last year, the year before that, or the year before that. For two or three years there has been an opportunity to benefit those people who most needed help. Instead of that, the money has been given away elsewhere."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 90.]
The hon. Gentleman does not appear to have appreciated that the year before that, to adopt his own phrase, was the year in which the standard rate of National Insurance benefit was increased by 10s.—in January, 1958. As for the people to whom he referred as those most in need, those on assistance, an increase in their real standards, as I said a few moments ago, was made last year, 1959.
Then we had the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) saying:
Nothing has been done for them "—
that is, the pensioners—
since January, 1958; over two years ago. What was done on that occasion benefited only a small fraction, about 1 million out of nearly 5 million. The great majority of old folks in receipt of pensions went unaided. At that time 4½ million did not even get a bean."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 130.]
The hon. Gentleman quite plainly did not realise what happened in 1958 when increases, in benefits were made to apply to all, at least to the extent that National Assistance scales were increased at the same time.
Then we had the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), who said, as his right hon. Friend said today, that
for the old folk things have not been so difficult since the Welfare State began. Their proportion of the national income is smaller each year".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 316.]
In fact the expenditure on retirement pensions was 2·31 per cent. of the national income in 1951. In 1958—and this is the last year for which we have full figures—if we adjust it downwards to allow for the increased number of pensioners, it was 2·77 per cent. and if we do not adjust it, it was 3·33.
The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) interrupted my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary and asked by how much national income had gone up, and whether he thought that pensioners were getting a fair share of the increase. The answer is plain. Under the administration of right hon. Gentlemen opposite they did not. The gross national product went up by 46 per cent. and pensions for those who did get the increase went up by 154 per cent. The sick and unemployed got nothing. Under our administration the gross national product went up by a little over 62 per cent. and the standard rate of retirement pensions by 66·6 per cent. I am not sure whether the right hon. Member for Llannelly was grateful to his right hon. Friend for that intervention.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No one has yet given as big an increase in the basic pension as we gave in 1946.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Because the right hon. Gentleman knows more about this than his right hon. Friend, he is trying to get away from the question of the share over the years of the national income which has been made available for pensions. I have given figures which show the increases. I will give more if he wants them. In 1951, £270 million was paid for retirement pensions. In 1959 it was £660 million. Therefore, the answer to the right hon. Member for Huyton is that the pensioner has more than shared under the present Administration, in rising standards.

Mr. Hale: The Minister has made a fraudulent statement, and it is time someone said so. It is dishonest and disgraceful. I have never listened to a


speech in this House with more contempt.

Mr. John Eden: On a point of order, Mr. Hynd. Did I not see you rise when my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) were on their feet at the same time? My right hon. Friend sat down in view of that and then the hon. Member for Oldham, West took advantage of it to intervene. I was under the impression—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): I was under the impression that the right hon. Gentleman was giving way to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale).

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I did give way, but in view of the intemperate, inaccurate and offensive language which the hon. Member for Oldham, West used, I regret that I did not stick to my first thoughts.

Mr. Hale: On a point of order. I rose to my feet because the right hon. Gentleman gave way. I was interrupted by a point of order from the other side, so am I not entitled to make my intervention now? I am protesting against gross misrepresentation. The question which the right hon. Gentleman was asked to deal with was about the percentage of their own money that the pensioners—

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Member must resume his seat.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman's point is a bad as his method of raising it, and that is saying something. If I am allowed to continue with my speech there is a chance that some hon. Members may get into the debate. If I am wrong, they are in a position to contradict me. That is a more orderly method. I am now coming to the pledge—

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: rose—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I normally give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I hope that he will let me get on with my speech.
I come now to our pledge. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed, when he wound up the Budget debate on Thursday night, that it is our intention to implement it.
The words of our pledge have been correctly quoted, but I will quote them again:
We pledge ourselves to ensure that pensioners continue to share in the good things which a steadily expanding economy will bring.

Mr. Loughlin: Is starvation a good thing?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Member for Llanedly knows that we did not, as did his right hon. Friends, commit ourselves to a precise change on a precise date. I do not wish to re-fight the General Election, but we did not do so because we believed that was the wrong way in which to deal with the problem of the social services.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I asked the right hon. Gentleman to deal with the pledge given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week, and not the terms which he has read out. The Chancellor said that the pensioners would share in rising prosperity. What is that share?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: There is no difference in substance between the terms of the manifesto and the words used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If I may finish again the quotation:
…continue to share in the good things which a steadily expanding economy will bring.
We faced considerable electoral disadvantage because we were not prepared, as right hon. Gentlemen opposite were prepared, to commit ourselves to a particular figure on a particular date. We reserved the right to deal with this matter with judgment, and to do so responsibly. It means that we shall follow in the future, as in the past, with improvements in the pension, with improvements in its real value. Most certainly.
We must reach a fair judgment as to what it is right to impose upon the contributor in the insurance scheme, and the contributions are already heavy. We must also consider what is the right timing, and we cannot be held to making statements about this on every occasion that it suits the Opposition's convenience to put down a particular Vote.
This goes beyond the question of pensions, but it includes pensions. It includes also the advantages of living in a society whose standards are rising. That is a matter of very great importance


when it is recalled how many pensioners live with people of working age, in many cases their own younger relations, and so share in that way in the rising standards of the community. It includes the advantages to the pensioners of stability in prices.
The right hon. Member for Llanelly will recall from his own days at the Ministry the nightmare effect on him as a Minister of watching the value of the pension eroded each year by rising prices, and the erosion also of the limited savings that many pensioners have and which are similarly affected by rising prices. Therefore, we include in this picture the very great stability of prices which has been obtained in recent years. The index figure has been steady for two years. It is the same figure that it was in April, 1958.
I understand that the figure for last month will be published tomorrow and that it will show that we are still at the same whole number, and that the decimals will show a fall rather than an increase. All these are things comprehended within the pledge, but, in the ultimate, this is a matter not of words but of understanding what past records mean. On that, the pensioner will still continue to have confidence in this Government and their record in the implementation of their pledges to a far greater extent—

Mr. Loughlin: Could the right hon. Gentleman live on a pension?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: —than they were disposed to have confidence in the offers of the party opposite a few months ago.

Mr. J. Griffiths: We are told that under the pledge pensioners are to share in rising prosperity. What does that mean?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have been doing my best to explain it at some length, and, I hope, with clarity, and so have my right hon. Friends. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well from his own experience the considerations which have to be balanced, and how utterly wrong it is to make premature statements which give rise to hopes and expectations among people who are concerned and interested. The right hon. Gentleman knows that—and he must know it only too well from his

own experience—the only difference being that during the years when he was concerned the corresponding improvements were not made.
The great mistake that right hon. Gentlemen opposite, perhaps deluded by their own propaganda, have made in this matter is their attempt to build up the idea that our 5½ million retirement pensioners are a homogeneous body, all of them in dire poverty. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite even try to create that impression by using the evocative but obsolescent phrase "old-age pensioners" with which to describe retirement pensioners under the 1946 Act. The retirement pensioners are drawn from every section of our society. As I have reminded the right hon. Gentleman, since the late-age entrants came in, the scheme is now a completely universal one and the retirement pensioners include rich and poor alike and all the gradations and graduations of our complex and variegated society.
Therefore, it is wholly unrealistic, and adds what is regarded outside as a touch of unreality to the arguments of right hon. and hon. Members opposite, to group this vast mass of our fellow-countrymen together and to seek to describe them all as one. They have little in common with each other except age, the fact that they have paid their contributions and the fact that, if they are under the age of 70, they have retired from regular work. It is part of this real problem of dealing with them properly, justly and fairly to all sections of the community that they are not—as hon. Members opposite seek to suggest— all of them, or even the majority of them, people who by any standards can be described as in grinding poverty.

Mr. Grossman: rose—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman himself referred—this again shows the complexity of the matter—to the fact that they had paid for their pension. The right hon. Gentleman may recall certain figures that I gave in the White Paper "Provision for Old Age" on this very point. I can bring those figures up to date. A man who retires this year at the age of 65 and who has a wife aged 60 gets a pension whose capital value is £2,650. If he has been in the scheme from the beginning, from 1926, and has contributed all he can for pension, together with his employer, to-


wards that £2,650, he will have contributed about £250. Therefore, it is not right for the right hon. Gentleman to confuse the issue with that sort of suggestion.
The problem is one of the most difficult that faces any Government. Nobody knows that better than the right hon. Gentleman. Equally, the right hon. Gentleman knows that descriptions of poverty and of hardship are at least as relevant, and perhaps more relevant, to the adequacy or otherwise of the scales of National Assistance than they are to a discussion of this issue affecting as it does people who can be described as rich as well as people who can be described as poor. I hope, therefore, that we can discuss this matter on the basis not that all is simple black or simple white, not that this is merely a great simple claim for millions of simple people in hardship against a hard-hearted Government, but that it is a matter of balancing a number of considerations.
What I have said about the position of some of the pensioners does not mean that we resile in any degree from our intention, expressed in our pledge, to make improvements in the pension. We recognise that it is right to use the machinery of the State compulsorily to transfer from the population of working age to that which is retired some wealth which otherwise those of working age would be able to enjoy for themselves. That is the essence of the pledge. As I have said, however, it confuses counsel and blurs the matter with genuine but, on the facts, false emotion to try to deal with this human issue simply on the basis of emotional appeals ad nauseam on behalf of the old people.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The effect of this is that the right hon. Gentleman and his Government have now given up the concept of an insurance benefit payable as of right equated to an adequate income. If the right hon. Gentleman accepts that, he must not start dividing the 5½ million between rich and poor. He said in Committee that that was what he accepted. Do I gather that he has now given it up and that, therefore, for him and his Government, National Assistance will in future be an essential part of insurance?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman could hardly have piled more inaccuracies into less space. What is more, he knows it. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the standard of pension, which in due course will be improved—[HON. MEMBERS: "When?"]— is already above the level which he himself described at this Box as the broad level of subsistence. For the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, to try to twist my analysis of the most difficult social problem of our time into a suggestion of a fundamental change of policy is unworthy of his record in these matters.
I do not, however, want to leave the Committee under the impression that this is an easy matter or one that we regard as easy. It is an infinitely difficult matter of judgment to know when and to what extent, in fairness to the working population as well as to those who have retired, we should move. But we have a good record in these matters and no intention whatever of spoiling it.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: Those of us who have worked opposite the Minister have always known his skill and ability. The speech he had to make today was the most difficult speech in his career as Minister of Pensions, for a very simple reason. He tells us that the problem is a difficult one. The difficulty which he faces is the difficulty of welshing on an election promise. That is the only difficulty of the debate today.
During the Minister's speech, I tried to ask him a question. I will ask him it now. Will he tell us what was the increase of national prosperity since he last increased the pension? Let us keep to the present, since 1958, a period of which the right hon. Gentleman is so proud. He is proud of the high pension and of the fact that prices have remained relatively stable since 1958 and that, therefore, no increase in terms of cost of living is justified. He is proud also of the fact that he has raised National Assistance rates since that time, not related to the cost of living but related to a real increase to keep pace with national prosperity.
What the right hon. Gentleman promised in the election, however, was not to raise National Assistance on a


means test. He said to every pensioner, "I promise you, whether you are on National Assistance or whether you are not, that you shall keep pace with national prosperity."
Since 1958, in our affluent society we have had a considerable increase in national prosperity—we do not deny it. In terms of wages, the wage-earner has increased and benefited slightly on the average. We do not deny that the average wage has risen. Neither do we deny the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the real standard of living of a large number of people has risen since 1958. The only group whose standard has not risen are those who are not on National Assistance.
When I raised that question with the Minister in the last debate, he said, as he always does, "Of course, there are the very poor and we have helped them, but above that level you all grossly exaggerate the amount of poverty". I gave a figure which we had calculated as best we could. We used the two researches which we know—Salford and Bethnal Green. On the basis of those two boroughs, we calculate, because it was the case there, that there are as many people who do not apply for National Assistance but who are justified by poverty to apply as there are who do apply for it. Therefore, we reckon that there are almost as many people who are in poverty though not on National Assistance as there are who are on National Assistance.
The Minister indignantly denied this during the last debate. He said that it was nonsense. We suggest that there should be an investigation. The Government deny the figures which we put forward from the researches which have been made, but they have assiduously refused to make an adequate national investigation into what we regard as the greatest problem and scandal of our generation, the poverty of the old people.
If the Government are so proud of their record, let them set up a committee of an independent group of people to study how old people live. Such a study has been begun on a small scale by Cambridge University. By the middle of this year we hope to have the results of five or six further studies to add to the figures available for Salford and Bethnal Green. It is high time that the Government realised that they can-

not go on telling us that what we say about the condition of old people is untrue and that the Government know better while they refuse to hold an impartial investigation. One of the things which I hope that we shall be able to insist on this evening is that we shall at least have an investigation of that kind.
What we have to define today is what we mean by subsistence. As my right hon. Friend said, the Minister is quietly reversing the policy of his predecessors, without saying so, by permitting the basic pension to be kept down and raising National Assistance scales ever higher and higher above the basic pension so as to limit the assistance one gives to the very poor. That would work if all our fellow citizens were willing to go on a means test. The Government are not prepared to help the poor unless they go on the means test. That is what we mean when we accuse the Government of systematically reintroducing the means test.

Mr. Christopher Chataway: Did I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that it would work if everybody applied? Does that mean that he would support such a scheme if everybody applied?

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. No. I said that it would work if all our fellow citizens were willing to accept the view that they should get an adequate pension only if they submitted to the means test. That is opposite to the view we hold, which is that the pension is a right. It should be adequate as of right to the contributors in return for what they have paid, without the necessity of a means test.
That was the intention of the National Insurance Act. It is that which is being reversed, not by legislation but by underhand administrative action by the Government who are assiduously raising National Assistance scales and disregards and keeping the basic pension far below the level of subsistence. It is high time that the Minister told us what he defines as subsistence. He tells us that it is all a matter of judgment whether a pension should go up. A few months ago he promised that it would go up in relation to rising national prosperity.
I suggest to fair-minded hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway that there is a


simple way of testing rising national prosperity. Why should we not take the average wage and say that if it goes up by £1 a year the pension shall automatically be adjusted in relation to the average wage? This was one of the proposals in our national superannuation scheme which enabled the scheme to carry with it, as on an escalator, old people so that their standard of living kept pace with that of the rest of the community.

Major H. Legge-Boorke: I hope the hon. Gentleman realises that if that had been the basis adopted the pensioner today would be getting less than he is.

Mr. Crossman: I know that the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major H. Legge-Bourke) would not claim to be an expert on this subject. My right hon. Friend gave figures to show what would have happened to the pension since 1946 if it had borne any relation to the average wage. One could relate the pension to the average wage in various ways. I suggest that the Minister must be prepared to come clean with the Committee on the principle he uses to decide whether 5s. or 10s. should be added to the pension. It is not good enough to have this type of paternalism which says that the Minister knows best, that he will decide, that it is his judgment which will decide whether pensioners are poor enough to deserve another five bob. There must be some objective criteria by which the Government decide to what extent a pension should share in the national prosperity.
The best way would be to relate the pension both to the cost of living and to the average wage rate, and make an adjustment if either rose. In the last two years when the cost of living has remained steady but when the national average wage has increased, the pension could have been increased in relation to the average wage to provide some benefit to the pensioner. If, however, a rise in relation to the cost of living would treat him better than a rise in relation to the average wage, he should be given that rise. I do not believe that we shall get this basic pension right until we get clear agreement about the principles on which pensions should be decided.
It is odious for the Government to say, "We know that they do not need a rise" when they have not made an investigation into the difficulties of pensioners, and when they have refused to say how they judge whether an increase is necessary. We have worked out plans by which this could be done. Nothing succeeds with this Government except pressure. I have never seen a Government more susceptible to pressure. There is only one way to teach this Minister that the pensioners deserve another ten bob, and that is to get them to use their votes, their lobbying power, and get them to put pressure on people who have no principles but who are concerned solely and simply with calculating political advantages.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: On 15th December, I had the privilege of following the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) and I hope that he will be successful later in catching the eye of the Chair. On that occasion, I opposed him asking the leave of the House to introduce a Bill to do roughly what the Opposition are asking the Government to do today.
I should like briefly to continue, after the interval of the last four months, the three arguments I used then to show why I did not think that the time was yet propitious for us to fulfil our General Election pledge. First, I thought that it was imprudent to run down the National Insurance Fund any faster than we were doing. Secondly, I did not think then that our increased prosperity was sufficiently soundly based for us to be able to make a further increase in the pension. Thirdly, I believed that the hardest cases of hardship had been relieved by the increase in National Assistance that had taken place in the autumn.
The argument about the National Insurance Fund is slightly stronger today than it was four months ago. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) became very heated a few moments ago about the £1,150 million in the National Insurance Fund and the £65 million which figured earlier in our proceedings today in connection with the Blue Streak missile. The fact remains that, under the National Insurance financial arrangements, we are having to finance the present scheme to the tune of about £50


million a year from securities sold out of the National Insurance Fund.
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend can give us an estimate of the market value of the National Insurance Fund as it is likely to stand at the end of the current financial year, assuming no change in the level of pensions or contributions and bearing in mind that the gilt-edged market has declined substantially over the last two years. This £50 million, and any further sum that has to be raised, would have to be obtained by selling stocks on the open market, and the Chancellor is already budgeting for having to raise £318 million, by National Savings or by selling stocks in the open market. That sum, considering the National Insurance Fund sale that has to be made, should be thought of as £368 million.

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: Is the hon. Member aware that this House provided in the 1955 Act for £350 million to be paid from the Exchequer to meet the emerging deficit to which he is referring, spread over a period of five years? In the Act of 1959 that period of five years was extended and thus the £350 million voted by this House is still available. In fact, less than £70 million has been paid over. At the rate of £50 million a year, it will be another six years before we need take anything from the Fund.

Mr. Freeth: The fact remains that at present we are having to raise money to the tune of £50 million a year, through the Exchequer or by selling out of the Fund, to balance income with expenditure, taking into account the £170 million that my right hon. Friend has contributed from the central Exchequer Fund.
We must consider this question against the background of what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said about last year, namely, that he has not been able to fund any Government stock during the year and had had to issue an extra £300 million in Treasury bills. If we were to tack further sums on the back of the Government deficit, whether by sales out of the National Insurance Fund, or by the Government trying to borrow in the open market, or by selling other Department's securities, we should end up with further Treasury bills, and inflation starting once again.
We must think how we are to finance any increase that we make. It is very easy to point to the hardships which exist and to the desirability of giving money to people. We are all generously-minded in this House, and we all like voting increased expenditure for worthy causes, but the bill has to be paid. It annoys some of my hon. Friends that the bills have to be paid in budgetary terms. It would involve quite a big bill if we were to do anything worth while in respect of increased pensions, and I do not believe that it should be met by increasing the budgetary deficit.
Secondly, there is the question of prosperity. We are now facing a threefold boom—a consumer-goods boom; a stockpiling boom, and an industrial investment boom. The consequence is that already the strain of our balance of payments is beginning to be felt. Before I came into the Chamber I saw the import-export figures for March on the tape. They show that in March of this year—in the half-year which should be most favourable to us—the gap between imports and exports and reexports was no less than £71·6 million. In the first quarter of this year, although exports have risen by about 10 per cent. over the equivalent period a year ago, imports are still running at about 12 per cent. more than last year.
Therefore, any action of the Government which increased the total volume of demand would be bound to run us into a balance of payments crisis once more, and I do not believe that we would get the thanks of the pensioners, or anybody else, if we disturbed the present prosperity, expansion and price stability. If we were to increase the pension we would have to increase taxation, and the rate of contribution, to pay for whatever increase we voted or our action would be completely dishonest and dishonourable.
If we were to increase taxes further at present, we should make it very difficult for our industry to compete, especially in view of the large-scale alterations in European tariffs which will occur this summer. If we increased contributions we might get further demands for increased wages. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will say something about contributions in relation to the lowest-paid wage earners.


I do not believe that it is yet possible to treat our prosperity as being firmly enough based to enable us to give something further to pensioners in the next few months.
If there were a great many grave cases of hardship we would want to give something to those who were hit hardest, as we did nine months ago. But the greatest benefit that we have brought to the pensioners is the stability in the cost of living, to which my right hon. Friend referred. We should wait to see how the year progresses, how the balance of payments turns out, and how the revenue looks like turning out. Then, if things go well, we should be in a position to fulfil our election pledge.
I would take up one point mentioned by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). It would be a gross waste of our national resources to put up the pensions of 5½ million people possibly to help some undefined number who are not willing to apply for a supplementary pension. I hope that before the debate ends my hon. Friend will tell us something about the information which the National Assistance Board possesses in respect of people who do not apply for it.

Mr. Crossman: The hon. Member is telling us that he thinks it would be a gross waste of money to keep the pledge which his party made to pensioners. It pledged itself to raise the pensioners' standard of living.

Mr. Freeth: The hon. Member should not try those rather elementary debating tricks. I was so determined to make myself clear that I wrote down the words before saying them. I said that it would be a gross waste of our national resources to put up the pensions of 5½ million people possibly to help some undefined number who do not apply for supplementary pensions. It is quite a different matter to put up the pensions of 5½ million people so as to give them an increasing share in our prosperity. I hope that the hon. Member will not misquote me in future.
As for the pledge, those of us on the back benches on this side of the House intend to keep it. I can assure the hon. Member for Coventry, East that we have no intention of welshing, and I am sure that the Government have no intention

of welshing. An election pledge is not broken because it is unfulfilled in the first Session of a Parliament. This Parliament is yet young, and I am sure that we shall so conduct ourselves on this side of the House that when the next General Election comes this pledge, like all the others contained in our election manifesto, will have been amply and fully redeemed and that we shall be worthy to receive—as we received last October —a further commission to govern the country for another five years.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I wish that there could be listening to this debate some of those people in Oldham who are living on £2 10s. a week, or some of the couples in Oldham who are living on £4 a week. I was in Oldham last week, talking upon a favourite theme of mine. I was saying that politics is not a dirty game, and that there are as many decent people in the House of Commons as are to be found in any other institutions. But the presentation of figures can sometimes be very unfortunate. I have spent a good deal of time in criminal courts, where men are often sentenced to considerable terms of imprisonment for the mere misrepresentation of figures, which misrepresentation has induced people to take actions that they would not otherwise have taken.
I am told that during the Minister's speech I intervened angrily. I congratulate myself upon my reticence, because I was exceedingly angry. It is a great pity that in this Chamber a Minister should be able to use figures as the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance did this afternoon. He was talking about losses on the National Insurance Fund, which has, in fact, shown a very small loss this year, and which has piled up over £1,000 million. He was drawing a comparison, as always, with the Labour Government—sometimes the Government of 1951 and sometimes that of 1946. Sometimes the 1946 figure gave him a slightly better result, and sometimes the 1951 figure was the better one for him.
When I intervened to talk about the £100 million of Government contribution to the National Insurance Fund, the right hon. Gentleman sprang one of those "cracks" about "now it is £170 million". It has been that for a few days


under the new Act demanding higher contributions. When those higher contributions are paid, that £170 million will be a lower proportion of the insurance revenue than their miserable £100 million was.
Let us see what it is costing. I have seen figures in which, to show the amount that the Government are paying, they include family allowances to bolster up the figure. The plain fact is that when my right hon. Friend brilliantly introduced the 1946 Act he was under some pressure from some of us even then. He said time after time that we had to face the unfortunate, almost catastrophic, rise in the number of old-age pensioners which would take place over a period and that during that period the Fund would have to face a temporary period of almost insolvency unless we could build it up before. Of course, under my right hon. Friend's scheme it has been built up. The reserves are larger than anyone anticipated, larger than the Actuary anticipated. He had in mind an unemployment figure of 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. when, in fact, the average figure has been considerably less under both Governments.
The result has been that for years old-age pensions have been financed out of the money which the unemployed did not have to claim, and indeed, out of the fact that sickness has been reduced. I sometimes wish that this Committee, when considering figures relating to the social services, would try to construct a balance sheet. We talk of the cost of the National Health Service, but no one talks about what is saved. No one realises, when considering the cost of the National Health Service, that, apart from its great moral value, we make money out of it. No one will make any money out of Blue Streak and we would not have it done. But these are things of value.
I do not wish to be emotional about this. I will take the advice of Simon Tappertit, who said, "There are strings in the human heart that had better not be wibrated," or words to that effect. I am in entire agreement with what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), but there was one phrase I am not sure about. Although I agree that this must be a contributory service, it cannot really effectively be a contributory service before 1994, 1999, or even 2000. That

is the trouble. My right hon. Friend realised that and dealt with it appropriately. It was provided that some persons should be entitled to participate almost immediately on one basis and that there should be full participation fairly soon, which meant Government subsidisation, and to that extent we should be taking more out of the fund than was actuarially practicable.
What has happened since? This really is the question which the Minister ought to answer. Let him spend Christmas in a two-room house in Oldham—I will share it with him—on £4 a week and really see how things are. The first thing is that these figures have always been a swindle. We talk of a cost-of-living index which includes such things as the cost of newspapers and 65 per cent. of transport and all sorts and sizes of things which old-age pensioners never buy. If one lives in two rooms in Oldham, with the roof leaking, and so on, one needs a great deal of fuel and power which are the things that have gone up in price over the last few months. For years we have tried to persuade the Minister to have a fair cost-or-living index.
Secondly, there is not merely an expansion of income, there is an expansion of need. As new things come in today the poorest households begin to think of a television set as a necessity, that a television set for an old-age pensioner is something worth while.
Thirdly, a good deal depends on administration. My clear impression, which is confirmed by hon. Friends who represent constituencies in the North, is that there is a good deal of cutting out and cutting down on supplementary benefits. I had to deal with a case of an old lady of over 72 who received a small allowance for laundry. Someone sold her a secondhand washing machine on the "never-never", at "five bob a week", so she lost her washing allowance. A great many old people have been persuaded to buy their houses by instalments which they will never finish paying until the house has been pulled down. I know of one old man who succumbed to that blandishment and lost his rent allowance.
A test of the decency, the value, the integrity of a country is how it treats its young and its aged members of the population. As my right hon. Friend the


Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), whose temporary absence we all regret, said so often, the real test is that of priorities and the art of politics is priorities. That is the test, that should be item No. 1—education, school milk, and things like that. Old-age pensioners and such people are entitled to live out their last years of their lives—having contributed to the wealth of the country and borne the burden of the years—and to share in the national wealth. They are not sharing at all.
The right hon. Gentleman says, "Well, if you work it all out…" My right hon. Friend said 3s. 4d. in 1946, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite says about 6s. 2d.—6s. 2d. from a national income which has gone up over the period from £10,000 million to £21,000 million, and from a Government who have just introduced a Budget involving the expenditure of over £5,000 million a year, and whose contribution up to now has been about 4d. in the £ of our budgetary expenditure. I think I am right in saying at a guess—

Mr. George Lawson: rose—

Mr. Hale: I do not want to give way. I know that other hon. Members are waiting to speak and I am trying to conclude what I have to say—

Mr. Lawson: What I wish to say is important. I know that I shall not now have a chance to speak in the debate and I have been concerned to do so. I wonder whether my hon. Friend knows that it is not a question of 6s. 2d. or 3s. 8d. but, according to the Minister himself, for those old-age pensioners who smoke the improvement in their pension on the 1946 figure is at present 9d. more than it was before.

Mr. Hale: That is not the pledge they gave us in Oldham. I am bound to say that the explanation given by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Denzil Freeth) that a pledge to the old-age pensioners comes in the same category as a long programme of reformist legislation; that a stop which we could take in 24 hours and by Order is to be regarded as in the same category as a pledge to denationalise transport or the steel industry—

Mr. Denzil Freeth: No.

Mr. Hale: But the hon. Member did say that. He said, "We shall do it sometime during the next five years if we have time and if we do not have another crisis." Of course, they will. They will probably do it just before a General Election.

Mr. Freeth: I said that an election pledge is not broken because it is not actually fulfilled in the first year. I did go on to say that I had no doubt that before the end of this Parliament we shall have amply fulfilled our pledges.

Mr. Hale: This is, of course, an old theory. The hon. Member knows that a breach of promise cannot be maintained so long as you stay engaged to the girl until she is 90. But it becomes a course of conduct which is regarded as a breach, regardless of the precise dates involved.
I beg the Minister—no doubt I have been discourteous to him today; I was deliberately discourteous, but I am not often discourteous—to reconsider his attitude on this matter. I beg him to look at what is the present position of couples trying to live on £4 a week, perhaps with some small supplementation from National Assistance. I beg him to look at the figure of £4 a week in relation to the incomes of the houses adjoining—and that is relevant. I beg him to remember the great principle laid down by Lloyd George, that the State itself must bear the full measure of its responsibility to pay a real contribution from the Exchequer, which we can easily afford to pay.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Chataway: The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) said that he did not intend to be emotional, and I do not think he was, but he based his argument upon the case of a couple living on £4 a week, or that of a single person living on £2 10s. a week. I must assume that these are people who are not claiming National Assistance, and for good reasons. I admit that there are plenty of people who will not claim National Assistance out of pride.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West however, based his argument on the figures of £4 and £2 10s., and I submit to this Committee that that sort of case or plea could be made in just those


terms if the pension rates were £5 and £3. This type of plea can be made a long way further up the financial scale than this, and it is for this reason that I want to urge upon my right hon. Friend the Minister the exactly opposite point of view to that put forward by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman).
I accept that there is hardship. We all know that there is hardship among old-age pensioners, and I am most anxious that that hardship should be met at an early date. In my constituency, I have ample evidence of elderly people who do need money. Of course, there is hardship amongst a majority of old people which has nothing to do with money, but has to do with the inevitable sadness of advancing age. But there are those who are suffering from a lack of money, and I accept that.
I want to see what money is available go to those who are in need. It seems to me to be nonsense, whatever amount of money we have, to say we have £160 million that we can give to the old-age pensioners this year, to say that it would be right to transfer that £160 million from the working population to the elderly. All the same, I would not be in favour of putting up the basic pension by 10s. It seems to me to be the wrong way of going about it.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East argued that a selective increase of the type which I am urging would be a breach of our election pledge. I do not accept that. The Prime Minister said that the Conservative Government would ensure that the old-age pensioners shared in the increasing prosperity of the country. It is a question of how that share should be distributed. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] I am not wanting to argue on that. The question is how the share should be distributed. Are we to distribute the share evenly over those who do not need it and those who do? Surely, there is no sense in that. Let us distribute the share, giving the majority of it to those who are in need.
I think that this principle would be accepted by large sections of the Committee, though I know that there would be some who would oppose it on principle, but I believe that this idea is attractive to a large number of people, because,

obviously, what we want to do with the money is alleviate hardship.

Mr. William Hamilton: Would the hon. Gentleman extend that principle into other fields, such as farming subsidies and the like?

Mr. Chataway: It is a principle to which I am generally sympathetic. I cannot tell what practical difficulties there may be in farming, and I do not want to go into other subjects. I should be called to order by the Chair. I am arguing merely from the point of view of elderly people.
The difficulty in all this, obviously, is to persuade people in need to go to the National Assistance Board, and to remove the humiliation and the stigma which is involved in National Assistance. The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), I thought, argued admirably that National Assistance is still here. He said that it was not disappearing, as Beveridge hoped. From what the right hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends have said, it appears that they do not expect National Assistance to disappear for another twenty or thirty years. Let us, then, alter the method of payment.
I will suggest that a way in which this extra money can be paid, whether we call it National Assistance or supplementary benefit. Let us not bother too much about words, because in principle there is not a very great deal of difference between the money paid in increased National Assistance and the money in increased basic pensions, for they both come at present from more or less the same source. I suggest that there should be a return of income from every old-age pensioner. Already many of them make a return of their incomes to the Exchequer. These should be passed on to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. A simpler form for a return of income should be given annually to the remainder of old-age pensioners on the basis that they should be entitled, as of right, to so much more above the basic pension.
Obviously, that would be a sliding scale, and in this way we could ensure not only that there was nobody in the country who had a pension of less than £3, because already there should be nobody with a pension less than that


amount, but it should also be possible to ensure that there is nobody with less than £3 or £4 per week. I do not know the amount, because it would depend, obviously, on the number of people there are who would not accept National Assistance because they feel it to be wrong.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East says that it might be another million people, and my right hon. Friend thinks it is unlikely to be as many as that. Let us take the mean, and say that there are half a million people who will not accept National Assistance. Let us add to that the million who now take National Assistance. This adds up to about a quarter or one-third of all old-age pensioners. We can do far more if what money is available is distributed to them than if we give it to those who do not need it, because in these days there are plenty of people with ample means who yet, and quite rightly, collect their increased pensions.
There is no violation of our election pledge in this suggestion, which I urge upon the Minister most strongly. It seems to me to be utterly wrong to deny help to those who need it simply because we are wasting what money we have upon those who do not need it.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. George Lawson: I have only a very short time in which to say what I want to say, and I suggest to the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) for his consideration that the idea which he put forward was discussed fully by the Committee which considered the National Insurance Bill.
If the hon. Member's point of view were adopted, there would be no sense in having basic pensions at all. The only value of a basic pension is that a man or a woman shall have that pension as of right, and if it is admitted, as it is admitted, that the basic pension is insufficient to live upon and must be supplemented from National Assistance, there would be no need on his argument for a basic pension, because all those in need could be given National Assistance. The sensible course, if we follow that point of view, is to have National Assistance for those who need it on the basis of a means test. The hon. Member should live a little bit longer and learn how other

people live. He would then appreciate how deep is the humiliation which some people have felt and ate still feeling—

Mr. Chataway: What possible further humiliation could there be in filling up a return of income for the Ministry of Pensions than the hon. Member feels in filling up his Income Tax return?

Mr. Lawson: It is a very different process. When we fill up our Income Tax returns, it is all done privately and sent by post. We do not have somebody coming into the house, listing all the items, going carefully over our clothes and in some respects treating us as if we were paupers. I say this to the Minister, and if he wants to challenge me I am prepared to take it up. This kind of thing is still going on. Though I do not want to do it in public, I can bring evidence of this kind of treatment. In the main, there is a much better spirit, but this kind of thing goes on. I can remember this as a child, and I have said it before. I can remember our attitude as children towards those children who were supplied with police boots. Those were boots which had five holes stamped in them to ensure that the parents could not pawn them. That attitude has pervaded working class conditions, and it still exists.
In the very few moments which I have I want to deal with the Government's record on pensions. I am in agreement with those who say that we ought to be thinking in terms of the present and of the future, but I put it to the Committee that whenever the question of pensions is raised we always hear the hackneyed story, "We did better than you". No doubt the right hon. Lady who is to reply will return to this theme when I have concluded—"We did very much better than you".
I want to look into this claim. I will not elaborate on the period when the pension was raised from 10s. to 26s. a week. Let us take it, very hurriedly, from the point at which it was raised to 26s. a week. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said on Second Reading of the National Insurance Act, 1954, the 26s. granted in 1946 was merely the 1938 Poor Law relief standard marked up in terms of 1946 prices. I say this in front of my right hon. Friend the Member for


Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), who was responsible for the 1946 Act. The 26s. granted in 1946 was the Poor Law standard of 1938 brought up to 1946 prices.
Let us look at what happened. I say right away that this pension—this Poor Law pension—was never enjoyed by the old people of this country. From the very beginning there was a process of erosion, of inflation. I will give the Government's figures, not my own figures; I may question their figures as being a little optimistic and feel that they are slightly exaggerated in favour of the Government. By 1950 the pension had dropped in value, in terms of 1946 prices, to 22s. 7d., which was a drop in purchasing power of 3s. 5d. below the Poor Law standard of 1938.
When the Labour Government raised the pension to 30s. in 1951, I say straight away that not all beneficiaries received the increase. Existing pensioners received it, but not all beneficiaries. When the figure was raised to 30s. it did not bring the purchasing power of the pension back to its original 26s. From Government figures we see that it was still 2s. 9d. below the original purchasing power of the 26s. in 1946. I admit that. I could go on to point out that there were many extenuating circumstances, such as the Korean war, but I will leave it there. We had the position in 1951 when the pension was 2s. 9d. less in real purchasing power than it had been in 1946. That is the record of the Labour Party.
Let us turn to the Government's record. We have heard very much about this, and I am convinced that many hon. Members opposite believe it. To use the Minister's own words, I think that they have been deceived by their own propaganda. A fortnight ago the Chancellor talked about how much better the Conservatives had done for the pensioners than had the Labour Party. In reply to Questions from some of my Scottish colleagues, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said that the Conservatives had done very much better than we did. I agree that they are honest men and that they believe what they are saying, but let us look at the record.
When they came into power the Tory Party raised the pension from 30s. to

32s. 6d., and I admit straight away that all pensioners received it, including the sick and the unemployed. But what was the 32s. 6d. in terms of 1946 prices? Even after the pension had been raised to 32s. 6d. it was still substantially below the 1946 level. Let us look at the three rises. There was a rise from 30s. to 32s. 6d. in September, 1952; from 32s. 6d. to 40s. in April, 1955, conveniently on the eve of an election; and from 40s. to 50s. in January, 1958.
The pension of 32s. 6d. never reached in purchasing power the value of the original 26s. By October, 1952, it was down in value to 2s. 5d. less than the 1946 level. By October, 1953, it was 2s. 10d. less and by October, 1954, it was 3s. 5d. less than the original 26s. in terms of 1946 purchasing power. These are Government figures, and they can be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT. Thus, the same thing happened as had happened under the Labour Party; under the Labour Party in 1950 the value was 3s. 5d. below the original purchasing power. But this time I am talking about the Conservatives who make such boasts about their record.

Mr. Dudley Williams: rose—

Mr. Lawson: I have not time to give way to the hon. Member.
After three years of Conservative Government the purchasing power of the pension was 3s. 5d. less than it had been in 1946. In 1955 the pension was raised by 7s. 6d., but by October, 1955, the pension having been raised in April, it was worth only 5d. more in purchasing power than it had been in 1946. These are the Government's own figures. This process of erosion was certainly not confined to the Labour Government. It continued under Conservative Governments, too.
I agree that when the pension was raised to 50s. in 1958 it rose above the 1946 level. Again on the Government's own calculations, in October, it was up to 29s. 9d. in value, which is 3s. 9d. above the original value. We have since been given a figure of 3s. 8d. more in value than the 1946 pension. But we must remember that this is after eight years of Tory rule.
One of my hon. Friends the other day asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, taking into account


the abolition of the tobacco coupons, to state how much better off the pensioner was now than he had been in 1955, expressed in 1946 prices. The answer, which is to be found in HANSARD, is 9d. for those pensioners who smoke. These are, again, Government figures to be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT. He is 9d. better off than he was in 1946. I put it to hon. Members opposite that this is not a process about which one can be proud.
I wish I had time to develop the other leg of the argument. A process has been going on by which steadily the contributors have been carrying a larger and larger part of the cost of the pensions, and this process will continue under the National Insurance Act, 1959.
The hon. Member for Lewisham, North spoke as if the money all came out of a common pool. He spoke about the emerging deficit, but under the new Act that deficit largely disappears. The Minister and his predecessor, now Minister of Housing and Local Government, have talked in terms of a huge deficit which they were carrying. The previous Minister mentioned it on the 1954 Act and the present Minister, when he introduced the 1959 Act, spoke in terms of a huge deficit which the Exchequer was carrying and which meant that eventually the Exchequer would meet about 50 per cent. of the cost of the pensions.
The answer, which the Minister well knows, although his Parliamentary Secretary may not, is that under the 1959 Act the deficit is permanently placed on the shoulders of the contributor. By 1971–72, for example, the proportion of the total cost being borne by the Exchequer, again in Government figures, is about 14 per cent.
We therefore have a swindle in two ways—and I use the word deliberately. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) used it many times in Committee. We have a swindle in the sense that people are led to believe that pensioners are very much better off under the Tories than they were under the Labour Party. The second part of the swindle is that a regular process is going on of taking the burden from the Exchequer and the general taxpayer and transferring it to the contributors' shoulders.

6.50 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): We have had a very interesting debate this afternoon. It has ranged over much of the ground which was covered less than a month ago on a Motion on a similar subject. Once again, we have had very great claims made by hon. Members opposite as to what money should be expended, but very little suggestion—beyond that of running down the National Insurance Fund—as to how these additional contributions should be made.
First, I take up the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) on a point he quite fairly made in analysing the Beveridge recommendations and point out an omission which I think completely nullifies the estimates of Beveridge. It was laid down, as the right hon. Member quite rightly said, that it was the aim of the Beveridge proposals gradually to eliminate National Assistance for pensioners, but that hope was based on the fact that the Beveridge recommendations were to stagger the raising of pensions over twenty years and thus eliminate the tremendous burden which was bound to result from raising the standard benefit all round whether people had contributed or not. The House rightly agreed that pensions all round, regardless of whether they had been contributed to—

Mr. J. Griffiths: That is quite true, but what about sickness and unemployment benefits cases in which one in ten or one in nine have to go to National Assistance?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I think that the right hon. Member will accept that the majority of people on National Assistance are pensioners.
I understand that hon. Members want this debate to terminate fairly soon— I hope the right hon. Member will forgive me if I do not go into that branch of the subject, but keep to pensions, as most of the debate has been concerned with that issue.
In accepting that principle we deliberately, and rightly, made nonsense of the Beveridge estimates and it is to be expected that the burden placed on the community to meet pensions would


be automatically much greater than was ever estimated or contemplated in the Beveridge Report.
The right hon. Member then referred in, I thought, less than fair terms, to the National Assistance Board. I regret that so many hon. Members—not intentionally, but certainly by implication —have spoken rather scathingly and rather denigrated the very good work and the great humanity of the staff, the Chairman and members of the National Assistance Board.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I cannot remember having done that.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I am not suggesting that the right hon. Member did. To eliminate the large number—and I admit that it is a large number—on National Assistance who are now getting supplements to their benefits, this could be achieved—at any rate, one of his suggestions was that it could be achieved —by increasing the pension by an amount comparable to that by which wages have increased.
The right hon. Member mentioned 8s. 11d. and said "make it ten bob in round terms". Does he really suggest that if there were a 10s. rise in pension he would be prepared to eliminate from National Assistance the people who need the help most, those who happen to be on National Assistance? Does he mean that 10s. extra is the limit of the allowance for them and that we should reduce the numbers but give 10s. also to people who have a second pension and do not require the 10s., and that then we would have fewer on National Assistance?
Let us get down to the realisation that every time pensions have gone up hon. Members on both sides have rightly said that if we knocked that number off National Assistance we would be hurting the people who need it most and giving them nothing. I do not believe that that is what the right hon. Member meant, nor that it is a policy which be would support. It is quite false to suggest that we could easily eliminate the numbers of people for whom we have deliberately increased benefits, for whom we have deliberately increased the disregards and whom hon. Members on both sides of the Committee recognise are those most in need because they have no other income but their contributory pension.
I wish to say a few words about the numbers on National Assistance. They have gone up, but that was inevitable if the level was raised because the intention of raising the level was to bring in a few more who were on the margin and who previously just failed to qualify for additional help. Perhaps the most valuable contribution is that made in respect of rents. Of the 976,000 pensioners receiving supplements in December, 1959, on the basis of rents a sample showed that 871,000 were householders, 77,000 were members of other people's households, 20,000 were boarders and 8,000 were in homes, hospitals or hostels.
The contributions made are even more interesting. The owner-occupiers had to pay rates and other out-goings averaging 12s. 4d. a week, 250,000 in local authority houses had an average rent of 20s. 8d. a week, while 515,000 other tenants had an average rent of 19s. a week. The rent allowance, which with the exception of 5,000 cases was paid in full, was made to a large number of pensioners by the National Assistance Board and it was substantial. It is not something which we should lightly denigrate or suggest would be quickly wiped out by the normal additions which might come in pensions.

Mr. Ellis Smith: No one suggested that.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: We were challenged by the hon. Member for Mother-well (Mr. Lawson). He said that he had evidence of bad treatment by the National Assistance Board. I hope that he will let us have it. We would like to look into it, because it is not true that officials of the Board poke about in people's clothing and belongings, or that personal belongings have to be disposed of before people can get National Assistance. It is quite untrue. It is quite untrue that all their personal savings have to be exhausted before they can get National Assistance. We have put up the limit and, as a result of putting it up from £400 to £600, 2,000 more have come on to National Assistance because their savings are not now above the limit.
Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have pointed out—and I know that, to an extent, it is true—that there are people who are reluctant to go to the Board for a supplement to their


pension. We have endeavoured to make the process very easy. There is no going before a committee. The Board's visitor, on application, will visit a pensioner's home. There is no publicity and, if the pensioner is a householder and has only his retirement pension on which to maintain himself, or if his means are within the savings limit, he can have the additional supplement to his pension for which he qualifies, as is the desire of all hon. Members.
Hon. Members opposite have said a great deal about "half a million people". They made a lot of that during the election. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man) is not here, because he raised the question again tonight about half a million people, claiming that they were not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled in this connection.
If, as he said, hon. Members have carried out investigations and taken samples in two cities, and if the evidence is based on real knowledge and facts, they should send us the names. Hon. Members are not generally shy in putting forward cases on behalf of their constituents—indeed, it is their duty and their right to do so. If hon. Members find such cases every week, they should let the Board have them. They should send in the details.
After this claim, I expected, going newly into the Department, to be flooded with applications from the half a million people the Labour Party said were not getting their due. Hon. Members opposite should send them in. We will be delighted to see that they get their due. If hon. Members cannot find the names, I can tell them that far from there being half a million—I accept that some people still may not desire to go to the Board— we have not had 100,000. We have not even had one in five. Unless the half million is a myth cooked up in Transport House, it should be substantiated by better evidence.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East then suggested—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] He will doubtless read my speech tomorrow. I am not worried about that. He used a term which I think was an affront and an insult to my right hon. Friend. He said that he was welshing the old-age pensioners. The hon. Member for Coventry, East has a

lively choice of words. It perhaps can be compared with his accusation that his own Government cheated the old-age pensioners when they let the value of the pension go down over six years.
The significant point of this afternoon's debate is that, whatever hon. Members may say about the current rates of pension under this Government, with the one exception of the hon. Member for Motherwell—I give him his due— every hon. Member compared them with the Labour Government record of 1946, not, as one would have expected, with the happy position that they would have hoped to leave when they went out of office in 1951. They compared the 1946 figures with our present record and not the lamentably lower figures in real terms which they left in 1951.
We had an interesting recommendation from the hon. Member for Coventry, East. He made much of adequate pensions, according to contributions, as of right. He then made a sturdy plea that these pensions should automatically be adjusted, both to wages and to the cost of living. He did not say whether they were to be paid for, as he recommended in the last debate, by increased taxation or, if they are to be by contributions, whether they should be met by increased contributions.
In the suggestion of the hon. Member for Coventry, East that pensions should be automatically adjusted, we have again that divergence which occurs so frequently among hon. Members opposite. I cannot better demonstrate the administrative impossibility of pushing pensions up and down and, if it is to be a contributory pension, pushing contributions up and down, than by using the very sound analysis of the right hon. Gentleman for Llanelly when he was at this Box, and was replying on this question:
We are definitely of the view that it is undesirable, as well as impracticable, to have automatic adjustments. This method of pegging benefits to a specific cost of living and adjusting them automatically was tried at the end of the last war in war pensions, and broke down the first time it came to be applied. We are convinced, after examination, that it will break down again."—(OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1741.]
So are we.
My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Denzil Freeth) asked what was the present value of the


National Insurance Funds. I can only give him a recent estimate, and that was £1,175 million. If hon. Members suggest that that should be run down to meet even the amount suggested by one hon. Member opposite, the Funds would be eliminated in a very few years. There would be no real basis of security for the future pensions of those who have contributed to the Fund over the years. They have a right to draw their pensions. It is not good economics or practical politics to take away from that surplus when the number of pensioners will rise year by year from 5½ million now to 7½ million over the next twenty years, and the demands will be all the greater and will require the surplus.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) also claimed that my right hon. Friend's figure of £170 million was tied to the National Insurance Act, 1959. That is not true. The £170 million is paid this year for the current pension fund.

Mr. Hale: I said, "this year in advance."

Miss Horns by-Smith: No, it is not.

Mr. Hale: The hon. Lady's own report says £170 million going on to 1980.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Yes, but that has nothing to do with the graduated

scheme of next year. It is for the current pension scheme. The graduated scheme is not yet in operation. Therefore, the demands we are now facing are for the basic pensions and insurance under the current funds and the currently operated Act.

There are many other points to which I would have been very happy to reply, but we agreed with the Opposition to close the debate as near to seven o'clock as possible. I should like to conclude by saying that we adhere to our pledge that we shall see that the old-age pensioner joins in and shares the prosperity. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] We have, by our record, shown that it is not hon. Members opposite who have a monopoly of sympathy with old-age pensioners. On our record we believe that pensioners acknowledge, with their present pensions and their present benefits, that we have followed that pledge and we shall continue to honour it and to follow it.

Mr. J. Griffiths: To register our protest against the failure of the Government to redeem their pledges, I beg to move, That Item Class X, Vote 2 (Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance) be reduced by £5.

Question put: —

The Committee divided: Ayes 226, Noes 289.

Division No. 73.]
AYES
[7.8 p.m


Abse, Leo
Collick, Percy
Gourlay, Harry


Ainsley, William
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Greenwood, Anthony


Albu, Austen
Cronin, John
Grey, Charles


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Crosland, Anthony
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Allen, Scholefield (crewe)
Crossman, R. H. S.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Grimond, J.


Baird, John
Darling, George
Gunter, Ray


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
 Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Beaney, Alan
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Hamilton, William (West Fife)


Benn, Hn. A.Wedgwood(Brist'l,S.E.)
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Hannan, William


Benson, Sir George
Deer, George
Hart, Mrs. Judith


Blackburn, F.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Hayman, F. H.


Blyton, William
Dempsey, James
Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)


Boardman, H.
Diamond, John
Herbison, Miss Margaret


Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)
Dodds, Norman
Hill, J. (Midlothian)


Bowcn, Roderic (Cardigan)
Donnelly, Desmond
Hiton, A. V.


Bowles, Frank
Driberg, Tom
Holman, Percy


Boyden, James
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
Holt, Arthur


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter
Houghton, Douglas


Brockway, A. Fenner
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Howell, Charles A.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Hoy, James H.


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Hughes Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Evans, Albert
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Fernyhough, E.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Fitch, Alan
Hunter, A. E.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Fletcher, Eric
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)


Callaghan, James
Forman, J. C.
Irvine A. J, (Edge Hill)


Carmichael, James
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Janner, Burnett


Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas


Chapman, Donald
George, Lady Megan Lloyd
Jeger, George


Chetwynd, George
Ginsburg, David
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)


Cliffe, Michael
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)




Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Moody, A. S.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Morris, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Moyle, Arthur
Steele, Thomas


Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Mulley, Frederick
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Neal, Harold
Stonehouse, John


Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Oliver, G. H.
Stones, William


Kelley Richard
Oram, A. E.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. John


Kenyon, Clifford
Oswald, Thomas
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Owen, Will
Stross, Dr.Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


King, Dr. Horace
Padley, W. E.
Summerskill, Or. Rt. Hon. Edith


Lawson, George
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Swain, Thomas


Ledger, Ron
Pargiter, G. A.
Swingler, Stephen


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Sylvester, George


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)
Symonds, J. B.


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontyridd)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Peart, Frederick
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Pentland, Norman
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Lipton, Marcus
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Logan, David
Popplewell, Ernest
Thornton, Ernest


Loughlin, Charles
Prentice, R. E.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Wade, Donald


McCann, John
Probert, Arthur
Wainwright, Edwin


MacColl, James
Proctor, W. T.
Warbey, William


McInnes, James
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Watkins, Tudor


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Randall, Harry
Weitzman, David


Mackle, John
Rankin, John
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


McLeavy, Frank
Redhead, E. C
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Reid, William
Wheeldon, W. E.


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Reynolds, G. W.
White, Mrs. Eirene


Mahon, Simon
Rhodes, H.
Whitlook, William


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred
Wilcock, Croup Capt. C. A. B.


Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wilkins, W. A.


Manuel, A. C.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Willey, Frederick


Mapp Charles
ROSS, William
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Royle, Charles (Salford, West)
Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)


Marsh, Richard
Short, Edward
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Mason, Roy
Silverman, Jullius (Aston)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Mayhew, Christopher
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Winterbottom, R. E.


Mellish, R. J.
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Mendelson, J. J.
Small, William
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Millan, Bruce
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Zilliacus, K.


Mitchison, G. R.
Snow, Julian



Monslow, Walter
Sorensen, R. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. John Taylor and Mr. Rogers.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Campbell, Gordon (Moray amp; Nairn)
Erroll, F. J.


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Farey-Jones, F. W.


Allason, James
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Fell, Anthony


Alport, C. J. M.
Cary, Sir Robert
Finlay, Graeme


Amory, Rt. Hn. D. Heathcoa t(Tiv'tn)
Channon, H. P. G.
Fisher, Nigel


Arbuthnot, John
Chataway, Christopher
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Chichester-Clark, R.
Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford amp; Stone)


Atkins, Humphrey
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)


Balniel, Lord
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Freeth, Denzil


Barlow, Sir John
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Gammans, Lady


Barter, John
Cleaver, Leonard
Gardner, Edward


Batsford, Brian
Cole, Norman
George, J. C. (Pollok)


Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)
Collard, Richard
Gibson-Watt, David


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Cooke, Robert
Glover, Sir Douglas


Bell, Ronald (S. Bucks.)
Cooper, A. E
Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos amp; Fhm)
Cordle, John
Glyn, Col. Richard


Berkeley, Humphry
Costain, A. P.
Godber, J. B.


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)
Coulson, J. M.
Goodhart, Philip


Bidgood, John C.
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Goodhew, Victor


Biggs-Davison, John
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Gower, Raymond


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Critohley, Julian
Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)


Bishop, F. P.
Crowder, F. P.
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)


Black, Sir Cyril
Cunningham, Knox
Green, Alan


Bossom, Clive
Curran, Charles
Gresham Cooke, R.


Bourne-Arton, A.
Currie, G. B. H.
Grimston, Sir Robert


Box, Donald
Dance, James
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Deedes, W, F.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)


Brewis, John
de Ferranti, Basil
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Brooman-White, R.
du Cann, Edward
Harvie Anderson, Miss


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Duncan, Sir James
Hay, John


Bryan, Paul
Duthie, Sir William
Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward


Bullard, Denys
Eccles Rt. Hon. Sir David
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Eden, John
Henderson-Stewart, Sir James


Burden, F. A.
Elliott, R. W.
Hendry, Forbes


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Emery, Peter
Hlcks Beach, Maj. W.


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Errington, Sir Eric
Hlley, Joseph







Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Maginnis, John E.
Shaw, M.


Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Maitland, Cdr. J. W.
Shepherd, William


Hirst, Geoffrey
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hooking, Philip N.
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd amp; Chiswick)


Holland, Philip
Marlowe, Anthony
Smithers, Peter


Hollingworth, John
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest
Smyth, Brig, Sir John (Norwood)


Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Marshall, Douglas
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher


Hopkins, Alan
Marten, Neil
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Speir, Rupert


Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Stanley, Hon. Richard


Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Mawby, Ray
Stevens, Geoffrey


Howard, John (Southampton, Test)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Steward, Harold (Stockport, s.)


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Mills, Stratton
Stodart, J. A.


Hughes-Young, Michael
Montgomery, Fergus
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Morgan, William
Storey, Sir Samuel


Iremonger, T. L.
Morrison, John
Studholme, Sir Henry


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Mott-Radclyffe, sir Charles
Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)


Jackson, John
Nabarro, Gerald
Talbot, John E.


James, David
Neave, Alrey
Tapsell, Peter


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Nicholls, Harmar
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Noble, Michael
Teeling, William


Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Nugent, Sir Richard
Temple, John M.


Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Oakshott. Sir Hendrie
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Joseph, Sir Keith
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Orr-Ewing, C. Ian
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Osborne, Cyril (Louth)
Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)


Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Page, A. J. (Harrow West)
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Kershaw, Anthony
Page, Graham
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Kimball, Marcus
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Kirk, Peter
Partridge, E.
Turner, Colin


Kitson, Timothy
Peel, John
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Percival, Ian
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Langford-Holt, J.
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Vane, W. M. F.


Leather, E. H. C.
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Vickers, Miss Joan


Leavey, J. A.
Pilkington, Capt. Richard
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Leburn, Gilmour
Pitman, I. J.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St.M'lebone)


Legge-Bourke, Maj. H.
Pitt, Miss Edith
Ward, Rt. Hon. George (Worcester)


Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. Alan
Powell, J. Enoch
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Watts, James


Lilley, F. J. P.
Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)
Webster, David


Linstead, Sir Hugh
Prior, J. M. L.
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Litchfield, Capt. John
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Whitelaw, William


Longbotton, Charles
Profumo, Rt. Hon. John
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Longden, Gilbert
Ramsden, James
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Loveys Walter H.
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Rees, Hugh
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wise, A. R.


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


McAdden, Stephen
Ridsdale, Julian
Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard


MacArthur, Ian
Rippon, Geoffrey
Woodhouse, C. M.


McLaren, Martin
Robson Brown, Sir William
Woodnutt, Mark


McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Roots, William
Woollam, John


Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Worsley, Marcus


Maclean, SirFitzroy (Buteamp;N.Ayrs.)
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)



McLean, Nell (Inverness)
Russell, Ronald
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


McMaster, Stanley R.
Scott-Hopkins, James
Mr. Legh and


Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Seymour, Leslie
Mr. Edward Wakefield


Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Sharples, Richard

Original Question again proposed.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Class IX

Vote 1. Ministry of Transport

Motion made, and Question proposed.
That a sum, not exceeding £2,374,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Transport, including the salaries and expenses of the Coastguard, the Transport Tribunal, and the Inland Waterways Redevelopment Committee, subscriptions to international organisations, and sundry other services. [£1,250,000 has been voted on account.]

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (ADVISORY GROUP)

7.11 p.m.

Mr. Walter Monslow: Having regard to the limited time for the debate that is come, could we, at least, through you, Sir William, ask that speeches should not be unduly long?

The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): As the Committee will know, the Chair has no power to control the length of speeches, but I feel sure that it would be in the interests of hon. Members on both sides if hon. Members could curtail their remarks as far as possible.

7.20 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Robens: I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Monslow) that I shall curtail my own speech to the minimum in order to permit the many hon. Members on both sides who wish to take part in the debate to do so.
We make no apologies at all for returning to the subject of British Railways on this Vote. After the statement by the Prime Minister on 10th March and the subsequent statement by the Minister of Transport, it would hardly be expected that we could be content with the exchange of views which normally takes place after statements and Questions and Answers across the Table. We wish to spend time on this Vote to deal specifically with the matters raised in the two statements which were made.
There are two very great interests involved here. The first is the interest of 800,000 people who work in the industry

and their dependants. Probably about 2 million people in all are involved. Therefore, the ups and downs of the railway industry have a good deal to do with a very sizeable portion of the population. Secondly, an industry with a turnover of £700 million, an industry which, for strategic and social purposes, must be maintained irrespective of profit, is one which has a tremendous effect upon the economy of the country. It seems to us, therefore, that we ought very closely to examine precisely what the Government's policy is in relation to the matters covered by the statements made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport.
I was very satisfied indeed with that portion of the Prime Minister's statement referring to the Guillebaud Report, in which he indicated that the Government's view was that fair and proper wages should be paid to railwaymen and the Government would accept responsibility for that, the actual working of the Guillebaud Report being left to the ordinary negotiating machine within the transport structure.
Many of the difficulties occasioned to the Transport Commission and to those associated with the railways have been brought about by constant political interference with the industry. In the first place, there was fairly unanimous opinion among hon. Members opposite that they should denationalise road transport to a considerable extent. Thereafter, it became obvious to people in the House and outside that there was then arising a small group of people who wished to hive off or cream off all the other remunerative parts of the Commission's work and another group who were content to leave the Transport Commission as a public board but proposed to break up and decentralise the whole show.
The Prime Minister laid down three principles in his statement. When the Minister of Transport came to make his statement, he referred to the setting up of an advisory body. I am not sure that we have the right title for this body. The Prime Minister referred to it as a planning body or planning committee, and the Minister spoke about it as an advisory committee to advise him. The Minister said that the terms of reference were wide and had direct reference to the statement made by the Prime Minister on 10th March.
The Prime Minister laid down three principles. The first was that:
the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects.
The second was that
the public must accept the need for changes in the size and pattern of the industry.
The third, which seemed to me to be the vital principle, was that
the Commission must accept a radical alteration of its structure, so as to secure a more effective distribution of functions and a better use of all its assets. Measures of reorganisation should include decentralisation of management so that individual undertakings, including the regions of the British Railways, should as far as practicable be made fully self-accounting and responsible for the management of their own affairs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1960; Vol. 619. c. 643–4.]
This, so the Minister of Transport said, had to be done as a matter of urgency. He had, therefore, decided to appoint four eminent businessmen, as a matter of urgency, to deal with the position of the Transport Commission in relation to the principles laid down by the Prime Minister on 10th March.
After the two Acts of Parliament, there were two White Papers. In 1954, in Cmd. 9191, the Government said that they had consulted a wide range of interests, including all the big users, the Federation of British Industries, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the trade unions, the Trades Union Congress, and others. They said that
Those consultations have shown the Commission's scheme"—
that is to say, the railways reorganisation scheme of 1954—
to be generally acceptable and, in particular, acceptable in making possible a proper degree of"—
I ask the Committee to note these words—
decentralisation of management and control, and as being sufficiently flexible to allow for the development of regional management as experience develops of the Area Authorities which the Commission propose to appoint.
They went on to say:
The Minister fully agrees with the Commission's view that the Scheme must be widely drawn and flexible if it is to facilitate a fruitful and orderly development of decentralised management.
Finally, they said:
The Minister commends the Commission's Scheme to Parliament as one which will in his

view give full effect to the policy for the efficient management of the railways within the provisions of the Transport Act, 1953.
Two years passed, and then we had the White Paper of 1956 on the modernisation programme. Again, I ask the Committee to note these words carefully in relation to what the Prime Minister said on 10th March about the need for decentralisation. In the 1956 White Paper, Cmd. 9880, the Government said:
 By these Acts"—
that is to say, the 1953 and 1956 Acts—
the Government have, in their view, established the right framework for this great industry. The direction of British Railways has been decentralised to six Area Boards consisting of men of outstanding ability and experience.
They went on to say:
For their part the Commission early in 1955 published their Plan for the Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways, and the Government announced their support for it as a courageous and imaginative plan to give this country a modern and efficient railway system. The setting up in 1955 of the British Railways Productivity Council was a recognition by all concerned that the successful operation of the Commission's undertaking and its prosperity are dependent in a high degree on the efficiency and willing co-operation of every member of the staff.
Where are we going when a Government can in two White Papers fully approve the decentralisation and reorganisation schemes of the British Transport Commission and yet, after a General Election, say that they now want an advisory committee of business men to advise the Minister on further decentralisation? The 1956 Report of the British Transport Commission made it perfectly clear that these schemes which the Government pressed upon Parliament for approval and which Parliament accepted could not fructify in less than 10 or 15 years. When the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor presented these schemes in the debate, he was content with the view expressed by the British Transport Commission that it would take time effectively to decentralise the railway administration once it was admitted—as these White Papers showed that they were prepared to admit—that decentralisation was necessary and important. Now the Prime Minister and the Minister have appointed four eminent businessmen to advise them to do what the Transport Commission had spent a good deal of time in doing, that is, on decentralisation and so on.
I should like to know, and perhaps the Minister will be able to tell me, what is special about the four businessmen who have been appointed to advise him on what has already been dealt with very exhaustively by the Transport Commission and the businessmen who had been appointed in a part-time capacity to serve on the Commission. What is the difference? Are they more eminent? Are they better businessmen? What is it that these four businessmen have that the businessmen who are part-time on the Commission have not got? If the right hon. Gentleman wants the answer to those questions, I will tell him. The four businessmen have no railway experience and the part-time businessmen on the Commission have now had a considerable amount of railway experience.
One wonders, therefore, why it is that these four businessmen without any railway experience whatever have been chosen to advise the Minister. The chairman—I make no reference to the capacity of these men—is associated with Tube Investments. Mr. Chamberlain is also a director of Tube Investments and a part-time member of the Western Area Board. I should have thought that it would have been worth while to ask Mr. Chamberlain, who now knows something about the railways, rather than the chairman of Tube Investments.
Can the Minister explain why two scientists, an engineer and an accountant are superior to part-time businessmen whom he or his predecessor appointed? Are these part-time businessmen a poor lot? There is Mr. Barker, the managing director of Parkinson Cowan, a very big group of companies; Sir Leonard Sinclair, chairman and managing director of the Standard Oil Company of this country; Mr. Hanks, chairman and managing director of the Nuffield Organisation, a director of the British Motor Corporation and of the Nuffield Organisation and Parkinson Cowan. One could go through the list. They are very eminent businessmen indeed. Therefore, one has to look for another reason why more businessmen have been brought in.
I wonder whether these four businessmen realise that they may well have been brought in to be the handmaidens of Government policy. They cannot possibly, eminent and clever as they may be, as a matter of urgency advise the

Minister in a matter of months on railway reorganisaton which is a lifetime's study. It is very strange that the eminent businessmen who know something about railway workings have not been chosen.
The general view held by many people is that this is a way out of the difficulty into which the Government have got in relation to railways. They nearly reached the stage, by their continual interference, of a national stoppage some weeks ago. They are now in a position in which there is undoubtedly a desire to cream off the hotels, to prevent British Railways from developing their most valuable property sites throughout the country. It is far more acceptable that a little advisory committee should advise the Minister on these things rather than that the Government spokesmen should come boldly to the Box and say what they intend to do or indeed to give directions, as they have the right to do under the Act, to the Transport Commission. One can only draw the conclusion that this is in fact a screen for Government action and Government policy, and that, because of differences as to presentation, they find that it is the most expedient way in which to do it.
I have referred to the number of workers who are engaged in this industry and whose lives can be turned upside down by the political vagaries of the Government and their constant interference with British Railways. I read out from the White Paper approval of the setting up of the Productivity Council. We on this side have never complained, nor could we, at an outside body being appointed from time to time to look into the operations and workings of a nationalised industry. In fact, we have said that this is a useful thing to do, but always the committees that were appointed were completely free and independent to make any kind of recommendation they wanted.
Every one of these committees—the Fleck Committee, which looked into the operations of the N.C.B., the Committee presided over by Mr. Chambers, which looked into the affairs of London Transport, and the Herbert Committee, which will look into the question of the electricity supply industry—had wide terms of reference in which it was perfectly clear that they were not there merely to carry out Government policy but were


appointed to look perfectly objectively at a particular industry and make recommendations. On all these committees there has been an individual who had a long experience in the organisation of the workers. On this occasion, the T.U.C. were never even approached as to whether they might submit a name or names for inclusion on such a Committee. I must say that if they had been, in the knowledge of these sort of terms of reference, they would have been very unwise to accept any part in it.

Mr. Leslie Thomas: rose—

Mr. Robens: I will finish in a moment. I say that they would have been very unwise to have any part in it. This undoubtedly is purely a screen which the Government have put up to cover their own desire to carve up the railways and in fact to denationalise everything but the essential non-profit part of running the railways. I am surprised that under these circumstances the right hon. Gentleman was able to get people to sit on a committee of this character where in fact they will not be advising on an objective basis but merely giving to the Government the kind of advice that the Government want.

Mr. L. Thomas: The right hon. Gentleman said that my right hon. Friend did not consult the T.U.C. When my right hon. Friend announced the setting up of the Advisory Group and its terms of reference, the right hon. Gentleman objected to the terms of reference. I am quite genuine about this and I am asking this question to clarify my own mind. When the right hon. Gentleman objected to my right hon. Friend's proposals, had he consulted the T.U.C. and asked the T.U.C. whether it objected?

7.40 p.m.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) should have stated his objections the other day in the way that he did, because I have always had a great respect for his talents and ability, especially where trade unions are concerned. However, I am grateful for this chance to set out the Government's proposals as clearly as I can.
I start by summarising the position which faced the Government after the

election and with the action which has been taken. The dominant factor of the situation was a huge loss, including interest on transport stock, which, in five years, amounted to almost £350 million and which, in the calendar year 1960 alone, will be £80 million, including interest on stock. This reflects an operating loss on the railways estimated at £45 million a year, which includes the 5 per cent. interim award of the Guillebaud Committee, but does not include the final award, whatever that may be.
That was an intolerable burden on the community and it was clear that the Government should act and be seen to act promptly. The Government acted in several ways. The first was to decide that the deficit could not be met by loans below the line in the Budget, because there was no hope of repayment so that such a system was dishonest to the country. The Government faced the situation and put £90 million above the line, which, therefore, came from the taxpayer and which was one of the major difficulties with which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to cope in this year's Budget. The Committee should recognise that it is difficult to meet an extra expenditure of £90 million above the line.
Secondly, there was the Guillebaud Report—and I was glad that the right hon. Member mentioned it. In spite of the losses, the Government did not shirk the Guillebaud Report. They made an announcement quickly and, in the terms of the Prime Minister:
The Government accept the objective underlying the report of the Guillebaud Committee—that fair and reasonable wages should be paid to those engaged in the industry."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1960; Vol. 619, c. 643.]
I emphasise once again that the final Report of the Guillebaud Committee will add to the costs and that the costs will be borne by the taxpayer. That must be borne in mind, but a fair deal must be given to the railwaymen and, as the responsible Minister, I do not see why the railways should hire their labour at costs cheaper than those in outside industry. I am bound to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Guillebaud Committee consisted of three dons. There was no trade unionist, but, at the same time, the trade unions had the fairest of fair deals.
The third point in the statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was that there should be a reorganisation of the management structure of the British Transport Commission, and that there should be a radical alteration of that structure to get a more effective distribution of finance and a better use of assets. Decentralisation was included in that. However, decentralisation is a meaningless word unless each undertaking is self-accounting and manages its own affairs. The moment someone else holds the purse strings, it is no good saying that one is independent. All those right hon. Gentlemen who have held office in various Governments know exactly what I mean when I say that the Treasury plays a great part in their deliberations in different Departments. So it happens that the Commission needs to have self-accounting regions with their own cash if it is to be decentralised.
Having laid down the broad principle, as the Prime Minister did, the question was how to carry out the detailed application of that principle. The problem was not political. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman—and I hope that he will take my personal assurance—that it was not political, not regional and not local. It was not merely or mainly technical railway problems which were involved, nor merely a problem of industrial relations. The main job was the organisation of the management structure of British Railways from the business point of view, and at present that structure is too large.
We considered many ways of detailed application of the principles. It was suggested in a newspaper that, as the Minister of Transport was a businessman, he should do it himself. However, the sheer volume of day-to-day work which I am expected to do in the Ministry would preclude that. I have to spend three sittings a week in Standing Committee, watching the bright faces of hon. Gentlemen opposite, on the new road traffic legislation.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: The right hon. Gentleman will be very busy.

Mr. Marples: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, for he has advanced the argument why I could not do the job.
It has been suggested that civil servants should do the work, but the civil servants in the Ministry are a staff to cope with the railways as a going concern and not to carry out a major reorganisation of possibly the largest business in the country. In any case, if they had the numbers, they would not have the industrial experience necessary to cope with such industrial reorganisation, and such a proposal would not be fair to them.
Then it was suggested that the Transport Commission itself should undertake the work. I doubt whether the Commission could do it for two reasons. The first is that the Commission would be the judge in its own cause. Secondly, it has so much to do with the problem from day to day, that it might be better to have someone fresh with a new approach and possibly able to see the wood for the trees.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: The right hon. Gentleman referred to being a judge in one's own cause. Does he carry that argument to the extent of saying that experience in railway administration could actually be a disqualification for service on such a committee of inquiry?

Mr. Marples: Oh, no. That is a very good legal point, which I did not expect from the hon. and learned Gentleman, but it has nothing to do with what I have said. Irrespective of qualifications, it is difficult to be a judge in one's own cause.
Now I come to the point that more than anything else we wanted speed, because, with the loss running at those rates, we had to move fast. We therefore decided on a small group of outside advisers with experience who would not simply spend half a day or a few hours a week, but virtually most of their time on the job. I will deal with that later, when I tell the Committee what we are doing. In the meantime, the Transport Commission will be run by a very competent man.
When anybody is brought in from outside, one can have a single man, who is called a "dollar-a-year man", with broad terms of reference, or one can have a Royal Commission with every interest on it sitting for a long time. I remember that when I was Parliamentary Secretary under the present Prime Minister, when


he was at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, we appointed a dollar-a-year man, now the noble Lord, Lord Mills. I remember the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) asking us what Lord Mills was going to do.
At this stage, I am sure that I shall take all hon. Members along with me when I say that I hope that newspaper reports about a relapse in the condition of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale are wrong. I have had many arguments with him, but I am sure that everyone here will wish him well in his present illness.
In that eloquent and vivid way, which he alone in the House of Commons can command, he asked why we wanted a dollar-a-year man. We have provided the answer, because we built the houses with the dollar-year man. A Royal Commission, to go to the other end of the scale, would produce a long report after a long time and there would be majority and minority reports. A Royal Commission would not be applicable in this case.
We therefore decided to have a concentrated effort by a few people. Sir Ivan Stedeford is to give practically the whole of his working week to this task and I am sure that, irrespective of politics, all hon. Members will be grateful to a man prepared to undertake such a task in the public interest. The terms of reference of the Advisory Group are very flexible and wide. The Government have laid down the broad plan, but the group's terms of reference will be:
to examine the structure, finance and working of the organisations at present controlled by the Commission and to advise the Minister of Transport and the British Transport Commission, as a matter of urgency, how effect can best be given to the Government's intentions as indicated in the Prime Minister's statement." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 394.]
I saw Sir Ivan Stedeford yesterday and told him that if, when he started his work, he found that his terms of reference in any way inhibited him, I hoped that he would consult me at once so that we could consider whether the terms of reference should be broadened. At one moment, hon. Members opposite complain because the terms are not wide enough. Then, when we make them as flexible as this, they say, "Good heavens above." What do they want?

Mr. Robens: rose—

Mr. Marples: The right hon. Gentleman would not give way to one of my hon. Friends behind me and he must not expect me to give way. He must do unto others as he wishes to be done unto him.

Mr. Arthur Holt: rose—

Mr. Marples: I am sorry; there is only a short time for the debate.
The Advisory Group will be in continuous consultation with myself. I shall see its members every week or every fortnight. They will be treated like top civil servants, with two exceptions. First, they have the knowledge of outside industry, and secondly, they are not being paid. Apart from that, they will be treated in the same way as a Minister treats the top civil servants. I shall see them and help them all I can in any of their difficulties.
If, for example, after a month the members of the Advisory Group said that they would like some restrictions to be removed from the Transport Commission, if it were possible to do it administratively the Government would make the decision and remove those restrictions. If legislation is needed, the Government will give instructions for it to be drafted; and if a Bill is necessary, it will be introduced.
It is not intended to publish any reports. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] There are some good precedents for this. For example, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation, when Minister of Supply, received a report. The terms of reference on that occasion were:
to investigate, on behalf of the Minister of Supply, the general organisation controlling the Royal Ordnance factories and to report on any modifications which, if introduced, would tend to ensure closer control and/or greater efficiency.
The membership of that advisory group was the noble Lord, Lord Mills, then Sir Percy Mills, chairman of Avery's; Mr. Van Den Bergh of Uniiever; and Sir Reginald Verdon Smith, chairman and managing director of Bristol Aircraft, who was also a director of Lloyds Bank and others. There was no trade union member on the group.

Mr. Percy Collick: The Minister has made an exceedingly serious


statement which even worsens the whole position. He is telling the Committee that the report from this body is not to be made public property to the House of Commons. Why not? Why the secrecy?

Mr. Marples: I will deal with that.
Those were the terms of reference on that occasion. The members of the group were business people. No trade union member was included. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is a bad precedent."] My right hon. Friend the present Minister of Aviation accepted the report and carried out certain recommendations in accordance with it.
The crucial point is not who received the report, but who set up the committee, and I will say who set up the committee on that occasion. It was set up by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), when he was Minister in a Socialist Government.

Mr. Robens: It was purely internal.

Mr. Marples: There was only this vital difference, that the right hon. Member for Vauxhall did not tell the House of Commons and the country, whereas the present Conservative Government have told the House and the country. We have said what we are doing. The only crime to which we plead guilty is that we have told the country what we are doing, whereas the right hon. Member for Vauxhall did not.

Mr. Thomas Steele: The right hon. Gentleman must give us a better argument than that.

Mr. Marples: I will give another one—

Mr. Charles Pannell: rose—

Mr. Marples: No, I cannot give way.

Mr. Pannell: On a point of order. I want to ask the Minister through you, Sir Godfrey, whether, before making that statement, he observed the usual Parliamentary practice of advising my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) that he intended to deal with this matter.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Godfrey Nicholson): That is not a point of order.

Mr. Pannell: I know that.

The Temporary Chairman: It is agross abuse of the rules of the Committee when the hon. Member knows that it is not a point of order.

Mr. Jack Jones: It may not be a point of order. It is a point of honour.

Mr. Pannell: With respect, Sir Godfrey, when the Minister refuses to give way, I am afraid that a Parliamentary device which is well practised on the other side of the Committee must be resorted to.

Mr. Jack Jones: It is a point of honour.

Mr. Pannell: It becomes a point of honour.

Mr. Marples: As this debate was to be on a Motion of censure, I assumed that the right hon. Member for Vauxhall would be in his place.
Another point which is of interest to Members on this side is that the charge against me is that the trade unions who represent the rank and file are not included in the membership of the advisory group. The Leader of the Opposition, however, who was in his place to hear the speech from the Opposition Front Bench, but is not in his place now—I thought he would stay—has an advisory group on transport which is appointed by him and consists of the hon. Members for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish).
The rank and file, however, have chosen differently. They have chosen the hon. Members for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) and for Bradford, East (Mr. McLeavy) as the chosen representatives. [Interruption.] If the unions are to be included, as the right hon. Member for Blyth suggested, the Leader of the Opposition should bring the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West on to the Front Bench.
I want to say this about the unions. I saw Sir Ivan Stedeford yesterday. He has already held the first meeting of the Advisory Group. He will invite the Transport Commission and the interested unions to see him and he will invite all the interested unions, of whom there are quite a number, either together or separately as they choose; the choice is theirs. In this way, the views of the


unions will be considered in two different ways. First, the advisers will listen to them before they tender their advice. [Laughter.] Do not hon. Members opposite want them to listen to the unions? Secondly, before the Government take a decision, the unions again will be consulted. There will, therefore, be full consultation. We carried out this form of consultation during my three years at the Post Office, as hon. Members opposite who are interested in Post Office affairs will know. We propose to carry out the same thing with the railways.
Now, I come to the Transport Commission.

Mr. Collick: Why is the report to be secret?

Mr. Marples: The Chairman of the Transport Commission has been consulted throughout. I have seen the whole Commission myself. Its members have promised their absolute co-operation to help us to see whether we can streamline the railways to modern needs. At one time, we considered having the Transport Commission represented on the Advisory Group, but ultimately we came down against that scheme and the Commission accepted it.
The Transport Commission has had a difficult time, largely because transport has changed at bewildering speed. It has gone from mass transport at set times between two set points and has yielded to individual transport at any time between any two points. The motor car and other inventions have played havoc with the railways, not only in this country, but in the world as a whole. We cannot do without railways, small as the country is, with its large population. We need them for the commuter service, for example, in London, where public transport brings in 94 per cent. of the people. They need them abroad too. as they have found out in America.
If we are to bring the unions into this, as has been suggested, who else should be brought in? What about the users of the railways? I have had many representations from the users. Here is one:
 A large number of the travelling public would feel that a ' travelling member' on the Board would be able to watch the interests of the passenger. The function of the Board is as you have said, purely advisory, but the

psychological impact of the appointment I suggest would be very effective on the mind of the weary traveller who can feel at last something is being done in terms of advice other than purely financial considerations.
What about the taxpayer and the commercial user of the railways? Where do we end if we are to have individual interests represented? I do not think that we can do it.
I should like to take the opportunity of thanking the full-time members and the part-time members of the Transport Commission and of the area boards. Theirs has been a thankless task in some ways. There has been a lot of mud-slinging and criticism and they have not been able to answer back. They have had to take all this and give a great deal of their time. But in the House of Commons we get used to criticism. We acquire a capacity to absorb criticism, both just and unjust.
If ever the hon. Member for Bermondsey makes a speech which only discusses the merits of the case and omits personal references to me, I shall think that he is not very well. I expect to be insulted, and I am never disappointed. I must, say, however, that I wish that the criticism were heaped on Members on this side of the Committee, or on the Minister, rather than on individual members of the Transport Commission, who cannot answer back.
The railways are criticised in many ways. People say, "Do away with them and put roads there instead", but when one tries to close a railway one has far more criticism than when one keeps it open, especially in Scotland.

Mr. James Dempsey: Was that at Inverness?

Mr. Marples: Not only Inverness.
This is a genuine endeavour to try to do our best for the railways. The right hon. Member for Blyth may not think so.

Mr. Robens: I do not.

Mr. Marples: The unions will be consulted in every way. They will be listened to. This is not a political matter. The idea is to make the railways a viable and going concern and not an intolerable burden on the taxpayer or a drag on transport. There is more in this than a pure matter of trade unions. It is a genuine effort to solve the problem.
Therefore, I hope that the Committee will reject the Opposition's view tonight on two grounds: first, on the ground that we are genuine in this effort; and, secondly, that the Minister's remuneration is not adequate anyhow. To attempt to reduce it still further is the harshest measure that the right hon. Member for Blyth could have thought of. I hope that the Committee will accept my explanation of what we are trying to do. We are following the precedent set by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, which I think, is, in this case, a good one, and we shall carry it to a logical and final conclusion.

Mr. Steele: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question which has been repeatedly asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Collick)? He has been asking why the Advisory Group's report is to be secret. After all, the Guillebaud Report was a secret report to the Transport Commission and the unions, but it was made public because of the great public interest in this matter. Why, then, is this report to be secret?

Hon. Members: Answer.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West): The Committee will have to go back a long way to find an occasion when a Minister put up such a deplorable case on a major issue. Today we are debating a major change of policy in the great industry of transport, and the Minister's pitiable effort to defend his case indicates a very alarming situation.
Firstly, the Minister tries to base his argument on the statement that he will establish a planning board. Later he changes this to an advisory board, a remarkably quick change of scene in a day or two from planning to advice. The right hon. Gentleman attempts to justify this by saying that he wants outside people to investigate the operations of the British Transport Commission. Does he expect the Committee to accept that argument? I should think that the transport industry has been subjected to more inquiries, public, departmental and otherwise, than any other industry in the country.
The Minister knows what is really at stake here. It is the complete failure of

the Government's 1953 Act, which attempted to decentralise and denationalise to a certain extent the transport industry. The whole of the trouble stems from that. The Minister would have been more honest as a politician and for the sake of his reputation as a businessman if he had admitted that fact. Where are we with transport at the moment? We have had nine years of Tory Government to deal with the problem, and they have disposed of only a small proportion of the publicly owned industry and transferred it back to private enterprise. This indicates that public ownership must be regarded as a permanent feature of our economic structure. Events have proved it.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: How?

Mr. Popplewell: The hon. Member should sit down and be more mannerly. I am proving my point and he must wait in patience and hope that he may be called.
After nine years of Toryism, the Government have not thought fit up to now to disband public ownership. During that period they have made a big change. An efficient undertaking, which was developing a good organisation and management structure before the 1953 Act, has been converted from being a full-time Commission which was getting on with the job and which understood it into a Commission of fourteen members half of whom are part-time from outside industry. Half of them come from industries kindred to those with which the four wise men whom the right hon. Gentleman is now appointing are associated. In addition, the Government established area boards with a membership of forty, and it is most interesting to note the directorships which these people now hold. There are members of the areas boards from Tube Investments, and the colleagues of this great take-over tycoon who is now to be chairman of the Advisory Group are already serving on the area boards.
Then there is a representative on the Advisory Group from I.C.I., and already former I.C.I. men are serving on the area boards. Among the four tycoons there are men from the banks and finance houses, and already the area boards are cluttered with such representatives, no matter whether it is in the


north-east, the southern or the western. The same type of people are already serving the Commission and have brought the industry serious consequences. Government policy has brought about these appointments, and since their appointment these people have made otherwise what was an industry showing a profit. If the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) does not know that, he had better do his homework. It made a profit after paying £260 million in interest charges between the time it was nationalised in 1948 and the time the Government disturbed it in 1953.
Here was an industry which had been showing a loss under private enterprise in pre-war days and which in 1951, 1952 and 1953 turned that loss into a profit by its efficiency. This Government swept all that overboard, and since that time they have run the British Transport Commission into a deficiency of £350 million. It is not the Commission that should be blamed but those on the Treasury benches who have been responsible for bringing this about.
Now we have witnessed the exhibition made by the Minister in attempting to justify another full-scale inquiry. It is too ridiculous and too stupid for words. The Minister has seen the bad reception which his suggestion for an advisory board has received in the whole of the Press. I have yet to see one newspaper supporting his suggestion. There has been wholesale condemnation. That speaks for itself, because the Press as a whole is not favourably disposed towards publicly-owned undertakings.
Let the Minister consider this fact. What the Government have done is to destroy the esprit de corps which was being built within the railway service. The British Transport Commission is being blamed for many things because it is having to observe the dictates of the Government. At the same time the morale of the men has become extremely low, and it has taken Guillebaud to try to get that back again.
The Government have treated transport as the Cinderella of all the other industries by their policy. Now they are providing a smoke screen. Is this being done in an effort to assist the industry to get back on to the right lines? The Government know what is wrong. The

Tory benches have created the difficulties. They have appointed part-time personnel to the area boards, meeting probably once a month and receiving salaries far in excess of those given to highly skilled employees on the railway for a full year's work. Do the Government realise their mistake, and are they trying to use this way of getting out of it?
It is not my intention to speak long, because so many other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. In conclusion, I appeal to the Government to withdraw their proposal for an advisory board. It is an unwanted child —unwanted by everybody. Let transport men do the job, not transport dilettantes, because that is what these people are. We do not want take-over bid tycoons such as Sir Ivan Stedeford as Chairman of the Advisory Group. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Do not be alarmed, that is correct. He is chairman and managing director of Tube Investments and British Aluminium, making a tremendous packet out of it all, and because he does that in the financial market he is considered to be an ideal person to deal with our transport undertaking. How stupid and how ridiculous. The men in transport know what they want and no further investigation is necessary. The only thing they require is the green light from the Government to go ahead.
Stop this interference by the Government, by directives, by day-to-day interference. The British Transport Commission in the last few years has submitted eight applications to the Transport Charges Tribunal, but the Government have stopped the Commission applying the Tribunal's findings on two occasions. It is estimated that the result of the delay to which the Commission has been subjected has cost it between £100 and £150 million. Let the Government clear out this dead weight and let the transport men who really understand the job have commercial freedom to go ahead. If this is done I am convinced that within a measurable period of time we shall have a transport undertaking in this country of which we can be mightily proud.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Stodart: I rise as a new Member of the House of Commons to intervene in this debate and to ask for the indulgence which is always


extended by hon. Members on such an occasion. No doubt some hon. Members here have experienced at some stage in their career that feeling of nervousness, well-nigh amounting to panic, that has been my constant companion through most of the last few days and, alas, through some of the last few nights as well. I wish to make only two or three points and I promise that I shall not encroach long upon the generosity of the Committee. Therefore, I hope that the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) will not consider me discourteous if I do not follow him in his arguments on this occasion.
I have the honour to represent the western division of the capital city of Edinburgh. So many words have been used, in speech, in prose, in verse, about the qualities which really are Edinburgh's alone, that I do not propose to be competitive. But between that city and the city of which this House is so historic and distinguished a feature, there is and has been a link each day since before this century opened in the form of one of the most famous railway trains in the world.
About a month ago, thanks to the courtesy of the British Transport Commission and the kindness of the railway-men concerned, I was given the chance of experiencing something which I dare say every hon. Member in this Committee has dreamed about at one stage in his life, of travelling from London to Edinburgh on the footplate of the "Flying Scotsman". As far as Newcastle I rode on one of the new diesels. From there onwards I transferred to one of what I might describe as the vintage steam locomotives, which stand as a monument to the skill and craftsmanship in the engineering workshops of this country. I was thus enabled to see what a contrast there is in what, for want of better words, I may describe as the difference in the conditions between the new world and the old.
I do not suppose that any hon. Member would disagree with me when I say that success in any enterprise depends to a tremendous extent on the working conditions which are provided for those who take part in it. I was enormously impressed with four things as I rode along on this diesel: the absolute and utter cleanness of the driver's cabin; the

smoothness of the ride; the visibility through a wide windscreen and windows on each side, and, last but by no means least—in fact, I should say perhaps the greatest of all—the lack of noise within the cabin. All these things combine to reduce strain and to make the responsibility of the crew that much easier to bear.
Add to that the material economies of running the train, the 400 gallons of diesel oil that would have been needed if that engine had run right through to Edinburgh instead of the 7 tons of coal, and one gets an idea that with modernisation, and with the need for less servicing of the diesels there are great vistas ahead for the railways of this country.
My second point is about the composition of the board which the Minister has set up. My one regret is that he has not found it possible—and goodness knows, there must have been a good deal of competition in his mind about who should be on the board—to put on the board someone who lives in Scotland, because without doubt it will be in Scotland that many of the problems will be posed when the report on reorganisation comes in.
That leads me to my third point. It is easy to cry, "Cut down branch lines if they are not economic", but I should like to tell hon. Members of my experience of the branch line on which I frequently travel. Three or four years ago there was word of it being closed down. I live in the seaside town of North Berwick which is about 20 miles, or 40 minutes' travelling time, outside Edinburgh. When multiple unit diesels were introduced on that line, together with a piece of enterprise with which I will not bore the Committee but for which I pay tribute to the Scottish Region of British Railways, that 20 mile track from Edinburgh to North Berwick carried 150,000 more passengers a year than previously. That is a sensational increase, and considering that the running costs are about one-third of what they were before, I say again that the prospects for the railways are not as dim as many people try to make out.
Let those who cry out about closing the branch lines and who talk about that famous, or possibly notorious, line that runs from Inverness to Wick, refresh


their memories about the geography of Scotland and not fall into the trap into which a friend of mine who lived in London fell when, in answering my invitation to stay, he ended his letter by saying:
Perhaps it would not be much bother to you to run me across to Inverness on Wednesday morning.
When I pointed out that Inverness was 200 miles away he was very surprised indeed
I have no doubt that those who run the Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh and Inverness to Wick lines would not, with the best organisation in the world, he able to make them pay, and yet to close them down would leave the Kyle of Lochalsh and Wick over 100 miles from the nearest rail-head. Surely that could do nothing but aggravate the unemployment position and speed up the depopulation which every hon. Member, regardless of his party, is anxious to prevent.
I leave two thoughts with the Committee. First, we have heard a lot about Scotland having cause to lament the contraction in the production of her supplies of coal, but I am certain that Scotland will have many reasons to be thankful for the development of diesels on her railway lines. I hope that the board, when it has reported, will give time for the development to have a reasonable effect.
Secondly, provided that the clear light of day can be cast on losses where they take place, and on weaknesses where they exist, is there any reason why these railway services to the far North, once they are modernised and re-equipped, should not be regarded in the same light as the aircraft which are such an indispensable feature of life in the Highlands and Islands?
I thank the Committee for its kindness to me tonight. I welcome, with that one reservation, the appointment of this board, and I believe that its composition will show its work to be complementary to the great modernisation scheme which is being carried on at the moment by the British Transport Commission and the trade unions concerned. I hope that as a result of this tremendous combined operation all that is best in the traditions of British Railways will be writ large into the future, which I am quite sure awaits them.

8.27 p.m.

Mr. Ray Gunter: I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart). I am doubly pleased to do so, first, because of the gracious tribute which he paid to my industry, the railway industry, and, secondly, for the manner in which he did it. I am sure that the Committee will look forward to the hon. Gentleman's participation in future debates. I offer one word of warning to the hon. Gentleman. He has a great interest in the Scottish Region of British Railways. I warn him that when his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport talks about separate accounting for each region he had better look to his guns.
Because of the way the debate has gone I had better declare my interest. I am a member of the British Transport Productivity Council and the British Transport Joint Consultative Council, besides being president of one of the railway unions. I do not claim any greater knowledge than any other hon. Member about the economics of the industry, but I want to try to interpret the thoughts and fears of many railway-men at present—and that I claim to be entitled to do.
All the violent arguments that have raged about the question whether we should have a planning board or an advisory group arouse no more than a flicker of curiosity in my mind. What disturbs me most is the irrelevance of the Advisory Group to the great problems of transport. As far as I know, the men who constitute this Advisory Group are men of great ability and integrity, and I look forward to meeting them next Wednesday, which I believe is the day upon which they have invited us to meet them. We shall be able to tender them certain advice immediately, and if it should be salty I am sure that the Minister will not mind.
The fundamental decisions affecting the railway industry can be taken only by the Government. Before the Government seek advice about the administrative structure of British Railways—how authority can best be further decentralised and how the regions can be made self-accounting—they must determine what is to be the rôle of the railways inside the whole transport industry in the second half of this century. With all the authority in the world, no


advisory group can tender the Minister the necessary advice in six months. It is the Government who, having decided the overall transport policy, must turn their attention to the creation of a structure adapted to and capable of performing the task which the Government have laid down for it.
The frustration and bitterness of railwaymen that has reached its culmination in 1960 has not been born suddenly; it has its roots in history. It has been caused by the continuing failure of Governments to make up their minds what they want railways to do inside industry. Forty years ago one of the finest transport men that this country has produced—Sir Eric Geddes, who sat for Cambridge Boroughs as a Coalition Unionist and was far from being a Socialist, although he was one of the most far-seeing men on the subject of transport in this and many other countries—said something which is relevant to the problems that will arise in the next forty years. He said:
The State must harmonise the operation of the different agencies of transport as between themselves in the interests of the community as a whole. Under a system of competition not only did one railway or one dock strive to divert traffic from another, but trams sought to wrest traffic from the railways, railways to wrest traffic from canals, coastal services to wrest traffic from both, and so on and on.
He added, what every transport man knows by heart:
In future our effort will be to encourage each agency of transport to undertake that part of the total work which it, owing to its own special qualities, can most efficiently and economically perform.
That is the principle upon which our transport industry should be based, and no advisory group of four men can get away from it. The words I have quoted were the words of a man who was a better transport man than politician, but he became the first Minister of Transport, only to leave that post in disgust after two years because his political friends lacked the necessary vision and thought that the principle which he enunciated would lead to public ownership. The politicians of forty years ago destroyed our hopes of solving the problems which have bedevilled this nation for over forty years.
This principle was argued about by the Royal Commission of 1929–31. I remember talking to the late Sir Arthur

Salter who voted against the nationalisation Measure, but who was himself a transport man. He agreed that Geddes was right, and that it was the duty of the State, not necessarily by way of public ownership, to co-ordinate all forms of transport. Measures to further co-ordination have been introduced, bit by bit, but the tragedy is that every Measure taken in this direction over the years has been an invitation to a political dogfight.
Politics have bedevilled the industry that many of us have given our lives to. Any measure, however fiddling, which appears to be a move towards co-ordination seems to be regarded as a threat against personal liberty. It is as if the very foundations of free society would crumble were we to dare to proceed properly along that path. Measures have been taken and later withdrawn; legislation has been introduced and later destroyed. No wonder that today railwaymen pray for their safety against the assaults of the Government and of committees.
We should like direction and leadership to enable us to get on with the job. In nearly every industrial country in the world the State has intervened to lay down its controls and restrictions. I submit that before we start talking about orders and committees the Government must have an overall transport policy; otherwise there will be absolute chaos, with the destruction of the morale, initiative and ability of those men called on to perform the task of providing an adequate system of transport.
I ask the Minister to consider the position of the railways in the present setting, in the absence of any real transport policy. This Advisory Group will not give us a policy; that can come only from the Government. Today railways have to operate against fierce competition and at the same time are denied equality of opportunity with their competitors. There are the restrictions of the transport users' consultative committees, the restrictions of road tribunals, and the railways have to bear the burden of common carriers. Can we envisage a situation—can anyone—in which all these restrictions would be swept away; where railways would carry what they liked; where difficult, uneconomic cross-country hauls would be refused; where


commuter services would be curtailed because they were uneconomic, and where there would be a ruthless pruning of all services which could not comply with good economic and commercial conditions? We do not want a planning board to tell us that that is the only logical alternative to a co-ordination of transport, and I do not think that that state of affairs could happen in our country.
I have talked to industrialists and leaders of commerce on this matter and I do not believe that we can have a transport system in which every part of it is relieved of the common carrier liability. In the interests of the nation we are bound to assume that liability. I say, in addition, that we cannot denude large areas of this country of any railway facilities because such facilities do not pay. There is a social content in rail transport which only the policy of the Government can determine, and all the committees in the world will be unable to relieve the Minister of that final responsibility.
Today we have to look at the transport industry as a whole. In 1941, in the emergency of war, an illustrious predecessor of the present Minister, Lord Leathers, said that transport had to be considered as one unit. All the pressures and controls of war do not continue in peace-time, but some lessons learned in war-lime can very often be applied to peace-time conditions and that is one.
The Act of 1947, with all its defects— I have spent a good few years now in the trade union world and I have come to appreciate those defects—prescribed a solution to this problem which had existed for thirty or forty years. It provided a solution on the basis of the integration of all means of transport under a single common ownership. Yet in six years, another Government, which exercised to the full their democratic right, destroyed it and dropped the principle of integration.
The argument was that co-ordination is best left to work itself out through the competitive process. What has been the result? Leaving party politics out of it— because when we go into industrial negotiations, let me say quite clearly, we are not concerned with party politics—what is the position? I venture to suggest that transport in this country is in a chaotic

situation. Here we have the economics of Bedlam. The sum of £1,500 million has been put into the modernisation of the railways. Here we have the dream of railwaymen that at long last they can have modern equipment, new marshalling yards, all the new means of signalling and telecommunication, new rolling stock, electrification, dieselisation, and, in the light of the present chaos, what is it to do? What is its function? Only the Government can answer the question. I have no faith in committees. Men can talk with the voices of angels, but they will not answer this question. Only the Government can say what are the real functions and purpose of the modernised railways within an overall transport industry.
I say that the task of the railways must be determined by what the Minister proposes to do with the roads. It is his task, and his alone. If only the Minister would go into a Trappist monastery for six months, sit down and read the words of wisdom of the men in transport since 1920 and really dwell upon the economic problems that arise from an industry that is in chaos, he would find out what is really required in these days to fulfil the dream of Eric Geddes.
What is the present position? Everybody knows that the Institution of Civil Engineers—not the research department of the Labour party—has estimated that the cost of congestion on the roads of Britain in 1967 will be £2,000 million. That is the burden which the nation faces. In less than eleven years there will be an increase of 390 per cent. in the number of "C" licences of six-ton lorries unladen weight and over. This is one of the measures of the number of vehicles flowing on to the roads of Britain. The commercial vehicle fleet of this country doubled in the eleven years between 1949 and 1960, and the Minister scratches about like the Welsh three-quarters against England this year in his efforts to deal with parking, congestion and all the other bodily afflictions of the roads.
I suggest that there are thousands of tons of traffic on the roads of Britain that ought to be carried by the modernised railways, and it is as relevant today as it was forty years ago that it is the Government's duty to encourage each agency of transport to undertake that part of the total work which, because of its own


special qualities, it can most efficiently undertake. Whether it be privately-owned or publicly-owned agencies, it is the task of the Government to review the whole of the transport field and to lay down their policy, and they cannot pass the buck to a committee. It can well be argued that the individual should be free to make his own choice between the means of transport provided, but it is my belief as a transport man that the decision as to what means of transport are to be provided in the interests of the nation as a whole must be a Government decision.
It has been suggested that these four wise men are to have a look at modernisation. What a story could be told about modernisation. We have had a committee on modernisation, the modernisation plan approved, the plan appraised and reappraised, and now, in the Prime Minister's word, we are to have it "adapted". Does anyone give a thought to what these changes of policy mean to human individuals? For years part of my daily life has been engaged in dealing with the labour problems arising out of modernisation.
Some of us have tramped the country teaching and persuading our people that modernisation was right and proper, that they could not stand in the way of progress, that the questions of redundancy, moving one's home and interfering with the education of one's children were the crosses that railwaymen had to bear in the interests of a great modern industry. And then we have capital cuts—cuts in the investment programme. The programme is reappraised and the redundancy expected at one spot does not arise but arises at another. The only purpose of the railwaymen is to serve the industry well, but we make them frustrated and upset. I repeat to the Minister that if some of our evidence to the Advisory Group is not strictly Parliamentary, I am sure that at least the Lord will forgive us even if the Minister does not.
The group is to discuss decentralisation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) drew attention to decentralisation. We have been going through the agony of decentralisation in the past five years. At a time when everybody should have been concentrating on proceeding with modernisation

speedily and efficiently, we have had an administrative revolution with different areas and different districts. At a time when stability was wanted, once again the men were put in a mood of bitter frustration, anxiety and insecurity. How can management manage and how can trade union leaders be expected to maintain the morale and the discipline of their members when there is this everlasting change, largely arising from a lack of Government policy? It is the absence of leadership and of direction from Government level as to what the Government want the railways to do in the future which is the cause of so much of our trouble.
Hon. Members talk about self-accounting. Before the war we had a railway clearing house of over 3,000 clerical units so that they could divide up the amount of rail fare paid between, say, Derby and Bournemouth, because in that journey people came off the London and Midland and went on to the Southern Railway. They had to cost when an engine passed from one region to another. The most meticulous calculations had to be made in order that they could be self-accounting. Is it suggested that we should return to that? Is it suggested, in terms of operation and of accountancy, that we should go back there?
I submit to the Committee that the railways have a great rôle to play in the future. I believe that whatever happens in road development, there is a great place for the railways. I can foresee the day when great electrified tracks run from North to South, with trains running as the passenger timetables are now prepared. I see goods being taken from the place of manufacture speedily and efficiently to the point where delivery is required.
That will be achieved not as the Minister passes his burden to a Committee but as he makes up his mind, and the Government make up their mind, what is to be the overall transport policy. My last words in the debate, speaking as a railwayman, are that there is still a vast store of good will and of initiative among transport men throughout the country. I say to the Minister "Do not bedevil us with any more committees. Make up your mind what you want us to do, and then give us a chance to create a transport industry."

8.50 p.m.

Mr. F. J. P. Lilley: This being my maiden speech, I crave the indulgence from hon. Members which is so generously given at such a time. I have listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), and I can assure him that I, like the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), have driven a "pug" and kept it on the fails. The only thing I did not keep on the rails was the thing behind it.
This is the first time I have spoken in the House, and I am assured by many hon. Members that my nervousness is something which is not confined to myself on these occasions. I have the honour to represent the constituency of Kelvingrove, which is situated in Glasgow and is one of fifteen constituencies in that city. Kelvingrove was represented in this House for many years by the late Lieut.-Colonel the Rt. Hon. Walter Elliot. He was not only known as a great Scot but as a great Britisher, and I can assure hon. Members that last October I had every reason to know just how well he was considered by people throughout the world. I had to reply to the telegrams when, in October, Kelvingrove proved itself second to none in Scotland as a constituency.
Lieut.-Colonel Walter Elliot made the representation of that constituency so well known and in the doing of it became so well beloved to many people in this place and out of it that following in his footsteps makes me so nervous that I "gang wary". This fact must have been of great moment to my opponent and predecessor, Mrs. Mary McAlister, who represented Kelvingrove in the interim period. Kelvingrove appreciates the great honour done to Lieut.-Colonel the Rt. Hon. Walter Elliot's widow, who now adorns another place with her dignity and charm.
I come to the question we are discussing. As I say, I am nervous, but I have had a little experience. I have been able to stretch forth my right hand and pull the lever. Without being controversial, I can say that the wellbeing of British Railways has given me—and not me alone—much to think of in many years past. It is not so long since British hotels were considered a joke on the stages of Great Britain. I say this in all

sincerity. I am glad to say that that is now a thing of the past and today the magnificent improvement in those hotels, particularly in their catering departments, I am sure gladdens the hearts of the men who are responsible for tourism in this country. In particular, that must be of great pleasure to the man who has taken responsibility for tourism in Scotland.
I believe that with the better service now available, tourism will improve in many ways and it will improve many facets of employment—or, should I say, the lack of it—in Scotland. It may well be that improvements in other directions could be envisaged. This is a matter which has given me considerable thought over a long period as a councillor in the City of Glasgow. I was speaking recently to a man employed by the railways. His job is to assist where he can in the transportaton of goods from Scotland to England.
He assured me that, with the modern vehicles now available, he had improved the facilities between Scotland and England to such an extent that the railways now carried thousands of tons of goods formerly carried by road. I approve of this in many instances. I do not approve of it in other instances. I trust that his efforts, and those of others, will brighten the future for British Railways.
Is it possible that the railways might assist in other ways? I suggest that the City of Glasgow is a typical city in Great Britain. It has a terrific difficulty in securing land in the centre of the City to control its traffic problems. I suggest to the Advisory Group that it is possible to close down one of Glasgow's railway stations, namely, Glasgow Central Station. Better and more secure handling of traffic going from St. Enoch Station would remove the troubles and bothers of wagons, or trains and their carriages, standing at the station.
If my suggestion were adopted, Glasgow Central Station, completed with present-day automation in car stacking, could be of advantage to Glasgow. Other cities could do the same. Such action would produce a revenue for the railways from car stacking. It would prevent the headaches at present being experienced by the local authority, the police, and


by the much maligned car drivers looking for car parking facilities in large cities. Further, it would be much to the benefit of shopkeepers in the area.
I do not use trains much, but last week I was on trains four nights in succession going backwards and forwards to Scotland. I found that I could not sleep in the old type of carriage. I half-slept in the new type of carriage. I came into the Chamber and practically slept for the rest of the time. I am not paid to do that. We have a duty to our constituents, and the Minister has a duty to us, to see that the railway lines between here and Scotland are not such that the train bumps over something every second, wakening the passengers and resulting in them lying on the floor before they know where they are, their sleeping pills not having worked.
I apologise for taking up the time of the Committee in this way, but I can assure hon. Members that I was not able to deliver the wonderful speech on my own job as a civil engineer which I had prepared for last Friday. Today, I was challenged by an hon. Member for an Edinburgh constituency. He bet me that I could not make this speech. I took on the bet, and here I am. Strangely enough, everyone in this place worries about when one is to make one's maiden speech; then one gets up and makes it but nobody cares a damn whether it has been made or not. Now, I have mislaid the last part of what I have to say. I will thank hon. Members, therefore, for listening to me and so helping me to win my bet.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Walter Monslow: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Lilley) on his fund of good humour. We could do with more of it in this place—it would certainly enliven our proceedings. I can only hope that now that he has survived the ordeal of his maiden speech we shall have the joy of listening to him many times in the not far distant future.
We are somewhat limited by time in this debate, and many of us wanted to make quite a comprehensive survey of a problem so complex that it certainly calls for something that has not so far been applied to it—dynamic leadership.

In his Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put railway deficits above the line. I agree with him in his action because, quite frankly, there is no possibility of the Commission ever meeting all its commitments, and there is very little hope of its ever being able to repay the advances. We can, therefore, accept the Chancellor's decision.
Railway finances are, properly, being treated formally as subsidies, and counted as current expenditure. The deficit for 1960–61 is estimated at about £90 million. I believe that to be an under-estimate, and that when we have the full implementation of the Guillebaud Report the deficit may reach as much as £120 million. The Government should face the stark reality that what we have previously accepted as, perhaps, a concealed subsidy, will continue for all time. We should face that truth.
The Government claim to have set in motion a complete review of the structure, finance and working of the organisation at present controlled by the Commission, but some of us feel that they have not gone the right way about it. So far, four men are to work on the planning board—two scientists, a chartered accountant, and a chairman who is, I understand, an engineer. I believe that the Minister has not yet completed the composition of the board, but that it is hoped to include on it representatives of the Ministry of Transport and the Treasury.
If we are to augment the number of members of the planning board, surely it is not even now too late to plead with the Government to appoint to it a representative of the Trades Union Congress and someone from the Transport Commission. If the Government are not disposed to do that, they might at least consider the possibility of giving representation to one of the trade unions within the industry.
The Minister's statement clearly indicated his desire for some decentralisation and a realisation that the Commission's financial status must be reconstituted. Anyone would think that that was the result of the application of new thought. I recall Sir Brian Robertson repeatedly making that plea during the past few years. I pay this tribute to the British Transport Commission. Within prescribed limits, in


spite of dictation from the Government about how the industry should be administered, it has done a magnificent job in the circumstances with which it has been faced.
Last week, the Economist put forward the proposal to establish a new planning board in its correct setting, pointing out that a public transport organisation is a totally different animal from a manufacturing industry. We are informed that the membership of the board is not completed, and it is illuminating that no one is even now contemplating as a possibility the board's considering one fundamental aspect of the problem, namely, the complete integration of road and rail transport.
Between 1952 and 1955, prior to denationalisation, the road transport section of the industry was making a profit of £8 million to £10 million. The profitable sections of the industry are being hived off. I suggest that the planning board should consider the possibility of integrating all our transport services. In that way much could be achieved and, indeed, we should go a very long way towards making the industry solvent and really efficient. I leave the matter there because time is short and I must comply with the request made to me.

9.8 p.m.

Sir Richard Nugent: I am glad to be able to join in this very interesting debate and to add my congratulations to those already offered to my two hon. Friends from north of the Border, the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Lilley) and the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) on the contributions they made to it.
I cannot agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Monslow) said. I felt a good deal of sympathy with what was said by the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter). The hon. Gentleman speaks with great authority for those working in the railway industry, and I congratulate him on the work he has done in facilitating the difficult affairs of the railways in these times of rapid change.
There is, however, one point he made on which I must comment. He said that what will be the final rôle of the railways is the Government's decision. So it is.

I entirely agree. I am sure that my right hon. Friend is well aware of that. What my right hon. Friend is seeking to do is to equip himself with the necessary advice to make the decision. It is an extraordinarily difficult decision.

Mr. Holt: rose—

Sir R. Nugent: I am sorry, but I really have not time to give way. I want to sit down as soon as I can and I must be allowed to make my speech. If the hon. Member will be patient. I will give him my reasons for saying that the British Transport Commission is not in a position to undertake the review. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend as to the reason why the Ministry itself cannot do it. It is not geared to do it.
It is no use asking the Transport Commission to make this review at this time, because it is now doing its utmost to succeed on the railways. My right hon. Friend is perfectly right when he says that he finds a situation, on arriving in office, where the annual loss is about £100 million—and possibly more with the full effect of the Guillebaud award —and the Government are providing over £200 million a year, or a greater part of it, by way of capital expenditure for modernisation of the railways, and that, at the same time, the prospect of the railways being solvent and generally meeting the standard of service for which we all hope is still not there.
That is a situation which no Government could leave. The Government are bound to take action. What the Transport Commission did, at the request of my right hon. Friend who is now Minister of Defence, was to make a reappraisal of the modernisation plans, and this came into our hands at the end of last summer. That was a very sombre document. It caused me anxiety, as I am sure it caused many other people anxiety. The fact is that the Transport Commission, working under many conditions of great difficulty, some of which have been referred to today, has done and is doing its best, and it is no use asking the Commission to review the matter again. It has done so.
I think that my right hon. Friend is quite right to seek the help of outside experts to take a view about reconstruction of management and of finance and, finally—a point which has not been


greatly dealt with—as to what is to be the future rôle of the railways for the next twenty or thirty years. Inevitably, when we have discussions on transport the haze of battle descends upon us and each side accuses the other of bringing politics into it. But we have the common wish—and I know that hon. Members opposite have intimate knowledge of the railways—to make a success of the railways. We on this side are also putting our hands to the plough to help to modernise the railways and to make them into a really successful service.
We have the problem now confronting us of this failing service and that is why my right hon. Friend appointed these people to advise him. The main problem to decide is: what do we want the railways to do in the next twenty or thirty years? At present, we have a situation where the railways are not giving satisfaction, are costing us large sums of money and have an annual loss on average of about 20 per cent. overall on all operations. It is quite obvious from that figure that there are many operations which the railways are carrying out today which must be making an enormous loss. There are also operations which are making a profit. Somehow, someone has to disentangle them, the economic from the uneconomic. What my right hon. Friend needs from the Advisory Group is just that analysis of what there is that is economic and potentially economic and what is uneconomic.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: If the Minister knew his job, he would know that.

Sir R. Nugent: It is not so easy. The railways are a very difficult and complicated structure and it is very difficult to take a view about what is economic and what is uneconomic, particularly when we are dealing with a railway system which was laid out and designed to meet circumstances very different from what we have today, and laid out primarily to carry freight when 60 per cent. of the freight moved today goes by road.
Now, with the universal motor car travelling all over the country, we have an entirely different situation which is changing with enormous speed. There are many innovations, such as transport by pipe for oil and possibly coming for

minerals as well. All those things are happening so fast that a modernisation plan which was valid and the best which could be provided ten years ago may not be valid today.
The only sound ground is with the passenger service. Having had some contact and some experience with the railways, I have concluded that whatever happens over the next ten or twenty years there is no way of getting commuters daily into the big cities, except by rail. That seems to be a solid ground on which one can build. Nowadays, people commute up to sixty miles, so that that calls for a railway service covering the large part of the country, although still leaving out some remote areas. The Americans have done us a good turn in this respect, since they tried to do without rail services for commuting and have found to their heavy cost that it cannot be done. They have had to resuscitate rail services as fast as they could.
That is the answer to those people who say that we should get rid of the whole railway system. We cannot do that while we require it to carry 2 million and 3 million people a day in and out of the big cities. The position with through lines is enormously complicated and there are hon. Gentlemen with experience of the railways who understand it better than I do. It is very difficult to decide what the position will be in ten or twenty years. Some aspects, such as the parcels service, are sound and likely to contiue, but there are others about which it is difficult to decide.
It is just those matters on which the Advisory Group will advise my right hon. Friend. It will try to disentangle the economic from the uneconomic and then advise my right hon. Friend which is which. It will then be for the Government to decide what part of the existing uneconomic services should be kept, if any, for social reasons. That is obviously a decision of enormous importance. It may be that none will be kept, but if any part is to be kept we should know what it is to cost, a consideration in which all hon. Members are deeply interested.
We are all keen to see the railways modernised and streamlined, except in our own constituencies—and there is the rub. I hope that the review will show


which service is economic and which is uneconomic so that we can decide what ought to be kept in operation and what it will cost the Commission to keep in being any uneconomic part which we may wish to retain. That is the way this Advisory Group can help my right hon. Friend. I do not believe that there is any other way in which he can get the advice which he needs. I still hope that the Committee will agree to what my right hon. Friend is asking without a Division.

9.19 p.m.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: If I may say so without offence, the hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) has made the best case we have heard from hon. Members opposite in favour of the planning board. But even he, with his courtesy and generosity, has not been able to cover the thinness of the Minister's case for appointing this planning group.
This has been a remarkable debate, not least for the speeches from the two Scottish "maidens" opposite. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Lilley) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) on having dared to venture into a very controversial debate with their maiden speeches. They were united in one respect—both paid tribute to modernisation. As the years go by, more and more of the travelling public will realise what modernisation means for the railways. Both hon. Members in their pleasantly personal references were much appreciated.
It has been a remarkable debate, too, from this side, because we have heard from three of my hon. Friends each of whom is concerned directly with the railways through one of the railway unions. We have had a measure of the feeling on this side about the new planning Board. The Motion is a Motion of censure—make no mistake about it; but it is a Motion of censure that comes with an enormous amount of good will towards the Minister if only he is willing to take the necessary decisions. As with road traffic and as with almost everything that the Minister has to deal with, this side of the Committee is willing to back him if only he will tackle the real problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), in what must have been one of the most out-

standing speeches heard in the House of Commons for many months or years, has conveyed exactly the tone that we want to bring to this Motion of censure tonight.
What is wrong with the railways is part of our basic transport problem, and it is not only the railways that are affected. This is both an old and a new problem. It is an old problem in that no previous Government, except the Labour Government in 1947, has even tried to solve the problem of co-ordination. It is a new problem in the sense that the deficit which now faces the Government has begun to develop only since 1952. The reasons for it have been brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) and other hon. Members.
First, persistent under-investment in the railways before the war, during the war, because of the war, and during the post-war years because of the priorities of reconstruction. Second, the growing competition from the roads, which have caused great difficulty because the Government have never had a proper policy to deal with it. Third, interference by the Government in the operation of the railways. The Transport Commission estimates that £100 million has been lost to it because it was never allowed to raise its charges in time to deal with the rising costs which it had to face. Fourth, the trade recession which was estimated to have cost £30 million, and the impossible capital structure of the Transport Commission, which makes it pay, or attempt to pay, out of its current earnings, the historic costs of building our railways and to pay fixed interest charges even before paying working expenses. That is the impossible position that faces us in our railway industry.
Let us, however, put the situation into perspective. It is not only the railways that are in a state of difficulty. Let us consider other aspects of our transport problem—Air, for example. The aircraft industry has had public money pumped into it regularly in the last four or five years. Some £430 million of Government money has gone into the aircraft industry.
Consider airfields. The Minister of Transport is responsible for running our aerodromes—

Mr. Marples: It has escaped the hon. Member that there was a change last October. Civil aviation was taken away from the Ministry of Transport and was given to a separate Ministry.

Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman is always the first to draw attention to the failure of a colleague. This is not the first time that he has tried to push responsibility upon his predecessor. It was his predecessor who was responsible for the airfields in the last year for which figures were published—that is, last year. Every one of our 26 airfields made a loss. If we were to apply the same rules and close uneconomic airfields, we would not have a single airfield today. Indeed, under the Ministry of Transport the airfields managed to lose £10 million, representing 60 per cent. of their gross revenue.
The shipping industry has been in receipt of considerable sums of Government money by the investment allowances. Now, we are told, the Cunard Company wants a great deal of money to build successors to the "Queens". Mr. MacBrayne gets £250,000 a year as a matter of course because he runs an uneconomic service. Now, the president of the United Kingdom Chamber of Shipping has said that:
We must look to Her Majesty's Government for understanding and action. We shall ask for it not as suppliants but as a vigorous industry, which in these so-called enlightened days must have the Government behind it.
Everybody is lined up for money at the Treasury door because there is no co-ordinated transport policy.
Even the road hauliers who are able to claim in public that they run very cheap services do not have to pay for the roads. They do not have to pay for the police. They do not have to pay for the accidents on the roads, or to keep the dependants of people killed and hurt on the road. They do not have to pay the bill of £500 million for congestion which is going to rise, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Southwark said, to £2,000 million in the next few years. These figures are not recorded.
Therefore, we must keep a sense of proportion when discussing transport. It is not only the Transport Commission that is in difficulties. The Government's policy is in shreds. There is no co-

ordinated transport policy in the country today.
Let us look at what is to pass as a substitute for policy. First, in a statement made by the Prime Minister on 10th March, the right hon. Gentleman said three things—we must have a size and pattern for the railways which is in accordance with current needs, the public must accept this size and pattern, there must be a radical reorganisation with decentralisation and regional accounting, and the Planning Board is to work out the detailed application. Secondly, the Parliamentary Secretary gave a pledge to the House on 23rd March that the Commission would be represented on the Board. I do not believe there has been a change here. Probably the hon. Gentleman did not know what the policy was. I can hardly believe that the Prime Minister made a statement so ill-considered that it was not at the time realised that the Transport Commission was not to be represented.
Finally, we had the Minister of Transport in the House on 6th April, and by this time it was not a "planning board," it was an "Advisory Group," as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) said. The right hon. Gentleman went further. The Group is not only going to consult the railways, but other forms of transport as well, and it can recommend what it likes. Tonight the right hon. Gentleman was in most expansive mood and said that if it did not like the terms of reference it could ask for new ones.
But the terms of reference were laid down in the policy decision announced by the Prime Minister. Is the planning board allowed to say now that the Prime Minister's terms of reference do not make any sense? There are questions which the Committee is required to ask itself.
First of all, is the Stedeford Committee to do what the Prime Minister said and apply in detail the Prime Minister's policy? If it is really a task of application in detail, that is a function of management. Sir Ivan Stedeford, whatever his qualities—and none of us has made disrespectful reference to him— was not interested in railways a month ago and will not be six months hence.


Therefore, any recommendations made by him to be applied in detail are not likely to be taken by the Commission which will know that his interest in transport is transitory. [Interruption.] We are grateful for small mercies, but he is only a temporary figure on the transport scene.
If, on the other hand, it is the board's duty to advise generally, why has it been prejudged by the Prime Minister and is to include decentralisation and regional accountancy? One cannot have it both ways. Either the board is to recommend things which the Prime Minister did not say or is to be responsible for putting into effect what he did say, in which case it has an executive function. I hope that tonight the Parliamentary Secretary's reply will represent the Government's policy. We do not want to be told later that there has been another change.
How wide is the scope of this Committee? Is it only to consider railways? That has been done before. In the modernisation plan, its reappraisal, and its re-examination all these problems have been looked at from the railway angle. If it is to be not just the railways but a wider scope covering the whole field of transport, as we should like to see done, it should be carried out by another much bigger, stronger committee given an opportunity to do it properly.
The committee's report, we are told tonight, is not to be published. But the Transport Commission having received advice from this group, is it not to be allowed to publish it? Are we not to know even if the Stedeford Committee has come out entirely against the Prime Minister? This is a new departure.
The Prime Minister has gone further. He has attempted to lay down certain specific conditions under which the planning board must operate. First of all, there is to be a reduction of uneconomic services. Of course, there would be no Scottish railways if uneconomic services were to be shut down and if there were to be a strict commercial application in the Scottish regions. I hope that the maiden speakers have by their charm lured the Minister away from this rather primitive approach to railway modernisation, because the railways must operate as a whole. A piece of freight or a passenger who boards them on a branch line may go through the whole

railway system. If the branch line is not there the whole railway system will suffer, so we cannot take branch lines and uneconomic services solely by themselves.
Similarly, there are other—social— reasons like those which have dictated the subsidy to MacBraynes, which presumably could and should apply in the case of the railways. These are the problems which the modernisation plan set out to solve, and when the Prime Minister said that we would cut out uneconomic services he did not mention that as part of the modernisation plan there are already great reductions envisaged in uneconomic services. The British Transport Commission is cutting 10 per cent. more of its route miles in the next four years. This is more than in the last four years. Over the period between 1958 and 1963 the Commission will be reducing the number of passenger and goods stations by no less than 1,000, so the process of making the railways compact is already in operation under the existing Commission.
Now we come to the second condition laid down by the Prime Minister, that there must be decentralisation of railways. Of course, the historic process of the railways of this country over many years has been the other way. There has been centralisation—from 120 companies to 4 in 1921; centralisation of the Railway Executive under the Ministry of Transport in the war, when the railways were run by four general managers and Lord Ashfield; also there was centralisation under the 1947 Act.
It is true that in recent years, for managerial reasons, there has been a tendency to decentralise. This process began before the Labour Government left office. The Railway Executive began to give greater authority to the chairmen of the area boards. Then in 1951 the British Transport Commission itself approved managerial decentralisation. Again, in 1953 we had the Government's Act insisting on it, and in 1954 the Commission produced its own plan. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth pointed out, in 1954 the then Minister of Transport, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), approved the decentralisation plan then put into operation, and this process has gone on. In


1957, with the abolition of the central rate book, the Commission moved once again towards effective decentralisation.
Let us be clear about this. When we talk about decentralisation, do we know what we mean? When we talk about centralisation the case for it is in the sphere of operating efficiency. The case for centralisation is an economic one. It reduced the number of locomotive types that are ordered and by centralised wagon control, it gives a far better service out of each wagon than can be got if this job is left to the individual railway regions.
What, as I understand it, is happening at the moment is that for operating purposes there is centralisation, which brings economy, but for commercial and managerial purposes there is a great measure of decentralisation in the operation of the railways. I am only making the argument we often hear from the other side of the Committee, that the man on the spot knows best when it comes to the management of railways. To try to attach from the outside a temporary planning board which has only a transitory interest in railways, and expect its recommendations to be taken seriously makes no sense at all.
Now we come to regional accountancy. The Prime Minister said that every undertaking must have its own accounts, but the undertakings already have separate accounts. After all, the hotel and catering services, for example, put out their accounts separately. This year, for the first time, I understand, they will make a profit of over £1 million, which no doubt is very attractive to the takeover bidders, who are hanging about in the shadows to see what the planning board will be able to throw out to them from the window of the Ministry of Transport.
If we come to this seriously, is there anybody who really believes that we want to recreate regional accounting? Is there anybody who believes that we want to go back to the system of the railway clearing house with its 1,800 people trying to apportion the cost of a locomotive between the L.M.S. and the G.W.R.? Of course not.
The railway clearing house has largely disappeared. It now has a small number of staff—about 400—and it is not engaged

in that type of operation at all. To make sense of what the Prime Minister's terms of reference mean, we would need about another 1,500 to 2,000 clerks. What would they do? They would only go back to the position before the war when 70 per cent. of the railway receipts were pooled.
I quote in support the present Minister of Pensions, who was asked this very Question in 1954. In reply, he said:
The difficulty is to find a system which really does that."—
That is, railway regional accounting—
Even before the war, when the four mainline companies were in private hands, 70 per cent. of the receipts of the railway were subject to a pooling system which depended upon a number of arbitrary assumptions. Since then, centralisation has gone further. For example, there is, under this Scheme, a centralised wagon pool. I am not sure that a straightforward profit-and-loss account would necessarily teach us very much."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st November, 1954, Vol. 532, c. 150.]
That was not said by this side of the Committee. That was said by the Minister of Pensions who once briefly and ingloriously occupied the post now occupied by the present Minister of Transport.
In fact, this makes no sense at all, and the Minister knows very well that the verdict of people with experience on this Board is that it is ill-considered and ill-fitted for its task and it has been ill-received by the experts. The Minister said that he wanted to take it outside party politics. He has succeeded. It has been attacked by members of all parties. It has been attacked by Modern Transport, which described the Prime Minister's criticism as "unfair and misleading." The Economist described it as "further pinpricking of the Transport Commission." The Daily Telegraph's leading article described it as an "unhappy Board" and the Daily Mail said that "it was not one of Mr. Marples' best days." I congratulate the Minister on having taken it outside party politics.
Why has this been proposed at all? I have been trying to think of what I would say tonight to find out exactly how against all this advice there could have been these recommendations. I think the explanation lies in one reference the Prime Minister made to his own railway experience. He was, I think, a director of the Great Western Railway.


So I went to the archives of the Great Western Railway to see what happened when he was a director. I want to tell the Committee one or two figures of the period of stewardship of the Prime Minister when he was a director of the G.W.R. before the war.
The Prime Minister was appointed in 1929 when the G.W.R. was paying 7½ per cent. on its dividends. A year later, that is, after one year's work by him, the dividend dropped to 5 per cent. After the second year the dividend dropped to 3 per cent., and in the fourth year the dividend dropped so low that the G.W.R. could pay only 3 per cent. by dipping into reserves. That was the year in which the G.W.R. asked for a 10 per cent. wage cut to help with its problems. Between 1933 and 1935 the 3 per cent. dividend was paid every year out of reserves. But in 1936 the company actually earned its profit.
In 1937, it managed to raise it to 4 per cent. by postponing modernisation. It cut £3 million out of its capital requirement programme, and was thus able to pay 4 per cent.
In 1938, the dividend dropped to 0·5 per cent. and the G.W.R. lost its trustee status and was considered unworthy to receive the earnings of people under the Trustee Acts. The chairman, when asked why he did not pay the dividend out of reserves, said, "We have paid out £8 million from reserves to dividends in the last fifteen years and we cannot pay out any more". [Laughter.] That was ten years of good hard work by the Prime Minister with the railways. When I think of the Battle of Hastings I am reminded that he is not the only Harold who stuck out his neck and got one in the eye.
The railways were saved by the arrival of the war and by the fact that the Government began to take over railway operations. One of the first things that they did was to raise the dividend again to 4½ per cent. On March 10th one of the last things that the Prime Minister said was that the public must be prepared to pay more money for fares. Of course, he has had a gold pass since 1929 and has not paid railway fares for thirty-one years. Therefore, his appeal to the public for restraint may therefore be received in rather a different way from what he intended. At any rate,

that is the lesson of the men who really claim to know how to run the railways. They put the profits first; wages were depressed and modernisation was neglected. Public money went into the industry, as it did before the war with the private railway companies, and there is no accountability of any sort. That is part of the cause of the problem that the Government now must face.
We say to the Government, "We want action from you on certain very clear matters". Let us consider the Victoria Line Tube, for example, This was first examined by a Committee set up by Lord Leathers during the war. It was supported by the London Plan Committee in 1949. It was backed by the British Transport Commission in 1955; supported by the London Travel Committee in 1959. And it has now been handed to Sir Ivan Stedeford to look at in his spare time.
Let us consider the question of parking at railway stations. Why should not the Commission be given a one-Clause Bill enabling it to develop its own facilities in this respect? The late Sir Stafford Cripps proposed this in 1932, when the London Passenger Transport Bill came before the House, and he was backed by the present Prime Minister, who said that the provision of parking places and facilities for people using the railways needed to be developed. The present Minister is 28 years behind with his ideas. It is time that he gave the Commission power to do this.
We want from the Government the beginnings of a transport policy. We want them to think about developments in aircraft, pipelines, vertical take-off aircraft, helicopters and all the things which will emerge in transport in the next few years.
We want them to re-examine the Commission's functions and to take an unfair burden off its shoulders. Above all, we want the Minister to let the railways get on with the job. I challenge the Minister tonight: let him be the first Tory Minister of Transport who really wanted the railways to succeed. Let him be a man dedicated to helping modernisation, and let him forget the idea of a planning board, which we think is the first step in a take-over raid upon the resources of the Commission.
It is the duty of this Committee to put the national interests first. We do not believe that the planning board can succeed, because it does not command the respect of the men running the railways and working on the railways. Therefore, it cannot and should not command the confidence of the Committee tonight.

9.42 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): Upon one thing at least the horn. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and I can be entirely agreed, and that is in congratulating my two hon. Friends the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Lilley) upon discharging that most difficult of all tasks for a Member, that of making his maiden speech. The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West with its references to his journey on the footplate of the "Flying Scotsman"—in these days a diesel train— reminded us of the growing development of the modernisation plan of the British Transport Commission about which I wish to say something before I conclude.
The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East had a lot to say about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the old Great Western Railway, but he failed to make any comparison between the results achieved by the railways of those days, including the Great Western Railway, and by the Western Region today. Listening to the speeches of hon. Members opposite this evening one would have imagined that the nation was possessed of a highly efficient and highly profitable railway system which the Government, by appointing a group of advisers, were trying to monkey about with.
The whole purpose of the operation upon which we are now engaged, and of the policy enunciated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—the whole purpose of the appointment of the Advisory Group—is to deal with a situation which, unless it is dealt with now, will become steadily more serious. We are faced not with a highly profitable or even a highly efficient railway industry; we are faced with an industry which is losing money year by year. As some hon. Members, like the hon.

Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), know—and I pay tribute to his knowledge and experience—people working in the railway industry are grieving day by day over the loss of morale.
Let us look for a moment at the financial situation. First, the deficits of the Commission. To date, they amount to £353 million. Year by year the deficits go up. That is the first fact that we have to keep in mind. The second is that since 1956 the Government have advanced no less than £276 million to meet the deficits of the Commission. They have also advanced a further £326 million by way of capital investment. In all, that amounts to about £600 million which the Commission owes the Government or, to be more precise, owes the taxpayer.
I think that we are entitled to say that with this sort of situation developing the Government have not only the right but the clear duty to intervene and to take steps to put it right. That is what we are trying to do. I know that it is part of the duty of an Opposition to try to jog the Government's elbow, but I think that hon. Members opposite might have a little more sense of responsibility.
May I, next, come to the Advisory Group. As the Committee knows, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his original statement on this matter on 10th March when he used the expression "planning board". I think that a lot of the misunderstanding, and, indeed, the misapprehension, which there has been about this matter arises from the fact that at that time it was our view that something rather bigger than what we now propose, with a rather wider membership —which would have been a board to carry out the planning of the future of the railways—was in the minds of the Government. But it is important to realise that what we are now suggesting, and, in fact, what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport said a week ago, when he announced the names of the members of the Advisory Group, and so on, is something rather different from that.
It is important to grasp what the group is and what it is not. It is not intended to be a committee of inquiry. The precedents of the Herbert Committee and the Fleck Committee, and so on, are not appropriate in this case. We are not setting up a body to conduct a large-scale


inquisition into the affairs of the Transport Commission. It is a group of advisers possessed of special knowledge, and in due course I will come to what that knowledge is and how it will be useful to us. I will not go over again the major principles and policies that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced in his statement on 10th March, except to say this—[Interruption.] I think that the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), who did not allow himself to be interrupted, might be quiet for a moment.
Those principles represent the Government's general overall policy on the reorganisation of the Transport Commission. There is the main context, and now we are seeking detailed advice that we must inevitably have before those major principles of policy can be applied in detail to the undertakings run and operated by the Commission. The purpose of this Advisory Group is to work out the application of those principles to the undertakings of the Commission. As I said in the debate on the British Transport Commission Bill, three or four weeks ago, it is not intended to be an executive body wedged in—as I said—between the Minister, on the one hand, and the Commission, on the other. It is not intended to lay down rules that the Commission must follow. The intention of the Government is that it should be a body to advise the Minister—

Mr. Robens: In secret.

Mr. Hay: —no, not in secret—and the Commission on the detailed application of the Government's policy.
May I now say something about the group's remit. Again, I think that the use of the expression "terms of reference" is somewhat improper in this connection.

Mr. Robens: The right hon. Gentleman used it.

Mr. Hay: I am making my own speech, not my right hon. Friend's. My right hon. Friend put the situation extremely clearly, and got scant thanks from the Opposition for doing so.
The remit, or terms of reference, if hon. Members like, of the Advisory Group must, therefore, be simple and wide. If we need to, we can review and can extend the remit that this Advisory Group will have, but the ultimate respon-

sibility will be that of the Government, because it is the Government's policy that has to be implemented, and the Government themselves, as the Committee knows, are responsible to Parliament.

Mr. Collick: The hon. Gentleman has made a quite important statement, and it is the first explanation that we have had from the Government as to why they abandoned the Prime Minister's suggestion of a planning board and have come now to an Advisory Group. The hon. Gentleman will remember that in the debate on the British Transport Commission Bill, he himself said it was the intention of the Government to alter the structure of the Commission. That is what he said. In the terms of reference of this new advisory body—

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Manuel: Hon. Members opposite do not want to hear.

Mr. Collick: The terms of reference of the new Advisory Group say this, that—

Mr. Hay: May I intervene?

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Collick) should make a short intervention.

Mr. Collick: I am trying to make a short intervention. I am trying to get to know whether it is the Government's intention now to alter the set-up of the Transport Commission, or is it in harmony with their own terms of reference, which excludes that?

Mr. Hay: I think that the hon. Gentleman ought to listen to the rest of my speech, when it will be perfectly clear, because in a moment or two I am coming to that very point.
The method of working of the Advisory Group is to have its emphasis upon informality and speed. It will be for the group itself to decide how it goes about its task. It will be able to consult anyone it wishes, and, as my right hon. Friend said, Sir Ivan Stedeford has already made arrangements to consult both the unions and the Transport Commission. The hon. Member for Southwark told us that he was going to see them next Wednesday. I do not suppose that the group will mind if he is a little "salty" in his language, but I


am sure that it will be a useful and fruitful exchange of views. It is open to the Advisory Group to call for any technical advice or assistance which it may wish as its task proceeds.
May I next say something about the composition of the Advisory Group? We have been criticised in the course of the debate for having appointed four gentlemen with no obvious connection with the transport industry, but from what I have said I think it is clear that the task which they are to undertake is one which ought to be entrusted to a certain type of specialist.
The members of this Advisory Group are all in positions of great responsibility in successful—and I stress that word— private industry. There are two scientists, it is true, an engineer and an accountant, but there is one common factor which all of them have. They all have extensive and detailed knowledge of the problems of organisation and management of large-scale business in modern, twentieth-century conditions. That is the justification for our setting up this group.
We have this tremendous problem of overhauling and reorganising a business which, as an hon. Member opposite said earlier, employs over half a million people, and which indirectly affects the lives of several million people. In these circumstances, and with this long history of financial difficulty of the Commission, we cannot neglect the opportunity of making use of the best brains that we can get to advise us in the implementation of our policy. The problem with which the group has to deal is a problem of organisation. The principles of the organisation are laid down by those of us who have political responsibility for them. The application of those principles is a matter for technicians.
May I briefly come to the point about the representation of the trade unions on this group. As I said, we are having a small group of expert advisers to work quickly and informally. If this were a committee of inquiry, if it were like the Fleck or Herbert Committees, there would

have been every justification for having representatives upon it of all manner of interests. Industries, trade unions, the users of the services, the Commission itself, perhaps regional interests such as Scotland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West said, and Wales, could have been represented. In such cases it is the normal practice to include representatives of special interests.

But this is not that case. We are not appointing a committee of inquiry. We are appointing an advisory group. It is only right that if the Government take overall responsibility for the outline of their policy, and eventually responsibility for the application in detail of that policy, they are entitled to choose the advisers they would like. I do not think there is anything wrong in that. For that reason, there is in our view no necessity to have a representative of, for example, the trade unions.

I understand that the Labour Party's intention is to divide the Committee tonight. Several hon. Members who have spoken—not only today, but a fortnight ago—argued that politics should be taken out of this industry. The hon. Member for Southwark said, earlier, that politics have bedevilled this industry for many years. This may well be true, but surely at this time, with this history behind us and this great opportunity ahead, there is a chance for us to try to overturn and overcome that situation.

We are no longer arguing the virtues of nationalisation. What we are arguing in these days in not who owns industry, but what makes industry efficient. It is not the ownership of the British Transport Commission, who owns the shares, but whether and in what way we can make this nationalised industry infinitely more efficient than it is today and able to serve as the handmaiden of other industries in the years to come.

Mr. Robens: I beg to move, That a sum, not exceeding £2,374,800 be granted for the said Service.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Ayes 226, Noes 293.

Division No. 74.]
AYES
[9.58 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Baird, John


Alnsley, William
Allen, Scholfield (Crews)
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)


Albu, Austen
Bacon, Miss Alice
Beaney, Alan




Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Hilton, A. V.
Pavitt, Laurence


Benn,Hn.A.Wedgwood(Brist'l,S.E.)
Holman, Peroy
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Benson, Sir George
Holt, Arthur
Peart, Frederick


Blackburn, F.
Houghton, Douglas
Pentland, Norman


Blyton, William
Hoy, dames H.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Boardman, H.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Popplewell, Ernest


Bowden, Herbert W. (Lelcs, S.W.)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Prentice, R. E.


Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Bowles, Frank
Hunter, A. E.
Probert, Arthur


Boyden, James
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Proctor, W. T.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry


Brockway, A. Fenner
Janner, Barnett
Randall, Harry


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Rankin, John


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Jeger, George
Redhead, E. C.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Reid, William


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Reynolds, G. W.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Rhodes, H.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred


Callaghan, James
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Carmichael, James
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)


Chapman, Donald
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Ross, William


Chetwynd, George
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Royle, Charles (Salford, West)


Cliffe, Michael
Kelley, Richard
Short, Edward


Collick, Percy
Kenyon, Clifford
Silverman, Jullus (Aston)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
King, Dr. Horace
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Cronin, John
Lawson, George
Small, William


Crosland, Anthony
Ledger, Ron
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Grossman, R. H. S.
Lee Frederick (Newton)
Snow, Julian


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Sorensen, H. W.


Darling, George
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Spriggs, Leslie


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Steele, Thomas


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Lipton, Marcus
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Logan, David
Stonehouse, John


Deer, George
Loughlin, Charles
Stones, William


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Dempsey, James
McCann, John
Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)


Diamond, John
MacColl, James
Swain, Thomas


Dodds, Norman
Mclnnes, James
Swingler, Stephen


Donnelly, Desmond
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Sylvester, George


Driberg, Tom
Mackie, John
Symonda, J. B.


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
McLeavy, Frank
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield,E.)
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Evans, Albert
Manuel, A. C.
Thornton, Ernest


Fernyhough, E.
Mapp, Charles
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Fitch, Alan
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Wade, Donald


Fletcher, Eric
Marsh, Richard
Walnwright, Edwin


Forman, J. C.
Mason, Roy
Warbey, William


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mayhew, Christopher
Watkins, Tudor


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Mellish, R. J.
Weitzman, David


Ginsburg, David
Mendelson, J.J.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Millan, Bruce
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Gourlay, Harry
Mitchison, G. R.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Greenwood, Anthony
Monslow, Walter
White, Mrs. Eirene


Grey, Charles
Moody, A. S.
Whitlock, William


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Morris, John
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Moyle, Arthur
Wilkins, W. A.


Grlmond, J.
Mulley, Frederick
Willey, Frederick


Gunter, Ray
Neal, Harold
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Oliver, G. H.
Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)


Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Oram, A. E.
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Oswald, Thomas
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Hannan, William
Owen, Will
Winterbottom, R. E.


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Padley, W. E.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Hayman, F. H.
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)
Pargiter, G. A.
Zilliacus, K.


Herblson, Miss Margaret
Parker, John (Dagenham)



Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Mabon and Mr. Howell.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Barber, Anthony
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Barlow, Sir John
Bldgood, John C.


Allason, James
Barter, John
Biggs-Davison, John


Alport, C. J. M.
Batsford, Brian
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel


Amory,Rt.Hn.D.Heathcoat(Tlv'tn)
Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)
Bishop, F. P.


Arbuthnot, John
Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Black, Sir Cyril


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Bell, Ronald (S. Bucks.)
Bossom, Clive


Atkins, Humphrey
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos amp; Fhm)
Bourne-Arton, A.


Balniel, Lord
Berkeley, Humphry
Box, Donald







Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Nugent, Sir Richard


Boyle, Sir Edward
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie


Brewis, John
Hay, John
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward
Orr-Ewing, C. Ian


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Brooman-White, R.
Hendry, Forbes
Osborne, Cyril (Louth)


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Hicks Beach, Maj. W.
Page, Graham


Bryan, Paul
Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Page, A. J. (Harrow, W.)


Billiard, Denys
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Hirst, Geoffrey
Partridge, E.


Burden, F. A.
Hooking, Philip N.
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Holland, Philip
Peel, John


Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden)
Hollingworth, John
Percival, Ian


Campbell, Gordon (Moray amp; Nairn)
Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Hopkins, Alan
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia
Pilkington, Capt. Richard


Cary, Sir Robert
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Pitman, I. J.


Channon, H. P. G.
Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Pitt, Miss Edith


Chataway, Christopher
Howard, John (Southampton, Test)
Pott, Percivall


Chichester-Clark, R.
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Powell, J. Enoch


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Hughes-Young, Michael
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Iremonger, T. L.
Prior, J. M. L.


Cleaver, Leonard
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho


Cole, Norman
Jackson, John
Profumo, Rt. Hon. John


Collard, Richard
James, David
Ramsden, James


Cooke, Robert
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Cooper, A. E.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Rees, Hugh


Cordle, John
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Corfield, F. V.
Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Renton, David


Costain, A. P.
Joseph, Sir Keith
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas


Coulson, J. M.
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Ridsdale, Julian


Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Rippon, Geoffrey


Craddock, Beresford (Speithorne)
Kerby, Capt. Henry
Roots, William


Critchley, Julian
Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Kershaw, Anthony
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)


Crowder, F. P.
Kimball, Marcus
Russell, Ronald


Cunningham, Knox
Kirk, Peter
Scott-Hopkins, James


Curran, Charles
Kitson, Timothy
Seymour, Leslie


Currie G. B. H.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Sharples, Richard


Dance, James
Langford-Holt, J.
Shaw, M.


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Leather, E. H. C.
Shepherd, William


Deedes, W. F.
Leavey, J. A.
Skeet, T. H. H.


de Ferranti, Basil
Leburn, Gilmour
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd amp; Chiswick)


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Legge-Bourke, Maj. H.
Smithers, Peter


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. Alan
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)


Doughty, Charles
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher


du Cann, Edward
Lilley, F. J. P.
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Duncan, Sir James
Linstead, Sir Hugh
Speir, Rupert


Duthie, Sir William
Litchfield, Capt. John
Stanley, Hon. Richard


Eocles, Rt. Hon. Sir David
Longbottom, Charles
Stevens, Geoffrey


Eden, John
Longden, Gilbert
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Elliott, R. W.
Loveys, Walter H.
Stodart, J. A.


Emery, Peter
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Errington, Sir Eric
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Storey, Sir Samuel


Erroll, F. J.
McAdden, Stephen
Studholme, Sir Henry


Farey-Jones, F. W.
MacArthur, Ian
Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)


Fell, Anthony
McLaren, Martin
Talbot, John E.


Finlay, Graeme
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Tapsell, Peter


Fisher, Nigel
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Maclean, SirFitzroy(Bute amp; N.Ayrs.)
Teeling, William


Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford amp; Stone)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Temple, John M.


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
McMaster, Stanley R.
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Freeth, Denzil
Macmillan,Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Gammans, Lady
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Gardner, Edward
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)


George, J. C. (Pollok)
Maginnis, John E.
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Gibson-Watt, David
Maithand, Cdr. J. W.
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Glover, Sir Douglas
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Turner, Colin


Glyn, Col. Richard
Marlowe, Anthony
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Godber, J. B.
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Goodhart, Philip
Marshall, Douglas
Vane, W. M. F.


Goodhew, Victor
Marten, Neil
Vickers, Miss Joan


Gower, Raymond
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Mawby, Ray
Ward, Rt. Hon. George (Worcester)


Green, Alan
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Gresham Cooke, R.
Mills, Stratton
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Grimston, Sir Robert
Montgomery, Fergus
Watts, James


Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Morgan, William
Webster, David


Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Morrison, John
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Whitelaw, William


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Neave, Airey
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Nicholls, Harmar
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Noble, Michael
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)







Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Woodhouse, C. M. 
TELLERS FOR THE NOES: 


Wise, Alfred
Woodnutt, Mark
Mr. Legh and


Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Woollam, John
Mr. Edward Wakefield. 


Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard
Worsley, Marcus

Original Question again proposed.

Mr. Ray Mawby: rose—

It being after Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

NURSES (EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION)

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Robinson: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Nurses (Amendment) Rules, Approval Instrument, 1960 (S.I., 1960, No. 409), dated 11th March 1960, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th March, be annulled.
The purpose of this Instrument is to re-establish, in two years' time, a minimum educational qualification—a somewhat modest qualification; two passes at "O" level—for entry into the nursing profession, or into the greater part of that profession. I use the word "reestablish" because there was an educational qualification in existence up to 1939. It then went into abeyance, and has been in abeyance ever since. A change of this kind involves a change in the Nurses Rules, and that, in its turn, requires the approval of the Minister under Section 32 of the Nurses Act.
I say at the outset that I understand the motives of the General Nursing Council in seeking the Minister's approval for an Instrument of this kind. The Council is very naturally concerned— some of us might think that, on occasion, it is a little too concerned—about the status of the nursing profession. I believe that we are one of the comparatively few countries—at any rate, one of the comparatively few- advanced countries—that does not have an educational qualification for nurse entry.
That does, on occasion, place our nurses at some disadvantage in other countries, notably in the United States. On the other hand, it is true to say that the reputation of the training of nurses in Britain is such that there is very seldom any real difficulty in a British-trained nurse obtaining a job overseas appropriate to her qualifications and experience.
I gather that the Council has also been worried about the level of wastage amongst student nurses, particularly in the early months of their training—I agree that that has been and, indeed, is a serious thing—and it believes that the introduction of an educational qualification would tend to eliminate this wastage. In this belief, I believe that

the Council is mistaken, because there are very many causes of this wastage.
It may occur because a girl finds herself temperamentally unsuited to nursing; she may not like the work; she may fall for the attraction of some other, more convenient, less arduous and perhaps better paid job. And, perhaps, more than for any other reason, she may decide to get married. Therefore, in my view, only a minority of nurses fall out of their training because of any inability to measure up to the intelligence required to pass the examinations.
There are some moderately stiff hurdles to be surmounted in the three-year course—indeed, I think that some are a little too stiff—but nearly all matrons when accepting student nurses in the first instance apply their own intelligence standard, either formally or informally, before actually accepting a girl for training. Therefore, it seems to us on this side that there is no compelling reason for the introduction of this Instrument at this time.
Paragraph 3 (2) of the Schedule to this Instrument says that an applicant shall not be admitted for training
… for registered general nurses, or for registered sick children's nurses, or for registered fever nurses unless…she holds a General Certificate of Education…
There is one very significant omission there. The Instrument does not mention mental nurses. There has been, for a very long time, a somewhat deplorable tendency within the nursing profession, at any rate among the higher echelons of it, to regard mental nurses as a class apart.
I do not wish to exaggerate, but in some quarters they are almost regarded as second-class nurses. Indeed, I know of general hospital matrons who refuse to allow their student nurses to be seconded for training in mental hospital work because they do not want their girls to come in contact with mental nurses. The Royal College of Nursing itself practises a kind of professional apartheid in this matter by refusing to admit psychiatric nurses to full membership of the College.
All this has been happening in face of the fact that the work of the mental nurse constitutes in theory and very often


in practice a more positive part of the therapeutic process than the work of the general nurse. I imagine that it will be generally agreed that in mental hospitals the nurse-patient relationships which may be developed form an integral part of the treatment of the patient.
Many of us have for years fought this reprehensible attitude on the part of some sections of the profession. We have recently welcomed signs that this attitude has begun to change at last. It is common knowledge that the General Nursing Council, in putting forward its proposals to the Minister, wished the Instrument to cover all types of nurses.
The current number of the Nursing Times, the official journal of the Royal College of Nursing, in its editorial, says quite categorically:
… it is unfortunate that those who are training to care for the mentally sick are not required to have the same standard of education as those caring for the physically ill.
A little later, it says:
This is a short-sighted policy which does not augur well for the future, for even if the mental training schools adopt the Council's entrance test on their own initiative (as the Minister suggests) patients and would-be candidates may think the training offered is second best.
The Minister, in face of this rather striking change of attitude on the part of the College and the General Nursing Council, has made a decision which perpetuates all the old prejudices and appears, at any rate, to support the idea of a two-class nursing system. In any case, I should have thought that the exclusion was illogical since the requirements of the preliminary State examination are, I believe, the same for both types of nurse.
Why has the Minister gone against the advice of the General Nursing Council and excluded mental nurses? The answer is no secret. His advisers know full well that, despite recent improvements, recruitment in mental nursing is still proceeding at a far from adequate level. They know, also—no doubt, they have so advised the Minister—that it would be inviting disaster to erect, so to speak, an educational barrier which might exclude many potential recruits who would ultimately make admirable mental nurses.
There are many excellent mental nurses and, I believe, general nurses, too, who have the right sort of temperament, the

energy, the understanding and the intelligence, to do the nurse's job admirably, but who lack the educational qualifications and, perhaps, even the kind of educational aptitude which would be required to obtain them.
I must confess that I agree with the Minister's reasons for excluding mental nurses. I agree that recruiting would suffer if the Instrument were made to apply throughout. It would be highly dangerous at this stage to limit in any way the intake of mental nursing students. But, of course, there is the other side of the picture. The status and prestige of the mental nurse within the profession will be further damaged by this new distinction which has been introduced, and this in itself will have a detrimental effect on recruitment. I do not myself believe that it will be as serious as it would have been if the educational qualifications had been insisted upon.
I take these two arguments together. The first is that it is quite deplorable that there should be this differentiation, and the second is that if mental nurses were covered by this Instrument it would, in fact, have a deplorable effect on recruitment. Taking these two arguments together, I can only come to the conclusion that it is quite wrong to introduce an educational standard, at any rate at present.
I would go further. I believe that there are strong arguments against the introduction of this standard even in general nursing. I believe that it will have a serious effect on recruitment there, too. Most of us who have had anything to do with the hospital world know that the nursing profession is led, some would say even dominated, by the views and attitudes of the London teaching hospital matrons. This is perhaps inevitable because those matrons are, naturally, at the head of their profession.
In the London teaching hospitals there is no recruiting problem and, as far as I know, there never has been a recruiting problem. Those matrons are in the happy position of having a long waiting list of girls who want to train and get the cachet of having been trained at a London teaching hospital. They are able to pick and choose and they pick and choose girls with the best education and


sometimes from the best families. It is very natural that girls should wish to train at the great London teaching hospitals. The training schools have a first-class reputation, and the work there may not be as arduous as it is elsewhere because the patient-nurse ratio is about one to one in many of the hospitals, and there are many social and recreational advantages which they do not get elsewhere.
Indeed, some of the matrons of the London teaching hospitals are able to operate their own educational qualifications. I know that from the case of a young woman I know quite well who, some years ago, wanted to take up nursing. She tried to obtain an interview at a certain London teaching hospital, but because she had not taken the G.C.E., owing to the vicissitudes of her education during the war, when she was moved from one part of the country to another, she was not granted even an interview by that matron. Fortunately, she went to another hospital where the matron took a slightly different view and she came out top, or second to top, in her finals. This shows how these privileged hospitals are able to pick and choose their student nurses.
What happens in the hospitals of the industrial areas of the North? They have never been able to pick and choose. They are forced, if they are to have any student nurses, to take nearly all comers, provided that they show some aptitude for the profession of nursing. Having done so, they do their utmost to turn them into good nurses and I think that they have succeeded in doing so.
But not only in those areas have there been difficulties. In one Metropolitan area, in the comparatively privileged South of England, I have been making a few inquiries and I find that of the total students at present undergoing nurse training no fewer than 17½ per cent. are from colonial territories. Then there are others who come from the independent Commonwealth countries and from European countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain. On a conservative estimate, the number from abroad is probably between 20 and 25 per cent. of the total number of student nurses, and few of those would qualify for entry under the proposed rules.
Yet the hospital service depends on them not only to provide the future trained nurses we need, but also currently to staff the hospitals. That is in one of the most favoured parts of the country. I ask the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary how far the regional hospital boards have been consulted about these proposals and to what extent the views which they expressed have been taken into account in reaching a decision.
In short, I think that these rules will have a deterrent effect on recruiting for general nursing, but I have discovered that that is apparently the intention of the General Nursing Council. I quote again from the editorial which I mentioned earlier:
The policy of the G.N.C. for the future is to train more nurses for the Roll and fewer for the Register.
That is an extraordinary volte face on the part of the nursing profession, because for many years both the Royal College and the General Nursing Council had looked rather askance at the State enrolled assistant nurse and had even been at pains to emphasise that that grade arose simply out of wartime expedient. Certainly, there had not been any encouragement whatever to extend the roll in the past. They showed no wish to see any new intake of enrolled assistant nurses—rather the contrary. Now we have this very different attitude. I wonder whether this will work. I wonder whether it is possible now to revive confidence in this grade of enrolled assistant nurse. I wonder whether there will be anything like the adequate recruiting that they expect and hope for in this grade.
I am afraid that we may well be in the danger of finding ourselves at the end of the day with a small, highly trained elite in the nursing profession and a quite inadequate rank and file to back it up. We may be building up what we used to say about the old Spanish army—all generals and no troops—and that could lead to a quite dangerous staffing crisis in the hospital service.
It may be that, in the long run, these rules will lead to placing the interests of training before the needs of the patient. I have never believed that entry into any profession ought to be limited to those who could be expected or might


be expected to reach the top. If I may use the military analogy, I do not think that it is necessary for someone to have a field marshal's baton in his knapsack in order to be accepted into the Army in the first place as a private. In the nursing profession, we need large numbers of nurses who will do their job admirably, but who might never be expected to become matrons of large hospitals.
Judging by the length of time that the Minister has been cogitating over these proposals since they were first put forward by the General Nursing Council, I can see that he has no great enthusiasm for them. In the end, he has put forward what I can describe only as a rather wretched compromise which is at best premature and ill-timed. I hope that, in view of what I have said, and in view of what I believe to be the opinion of many hospital authorities throughout the country, he will have second thoughts and will accede to this Prayer.

10.29 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I find the opposition of the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) to this Instrument rather difficult to follow, partly because I understood that in our professional services generally we have recently been trying to concentrate on increasing the qualifications and the educational opportunities offered and that that has applied to almost every form of professional, industrial and commercial life. Without going into all the arguments in very great detail, I cannot help feeling that there must be something additional behind the hon. Gentleman's presentation of the case.
I want to take the hon. Member up on one point in his concluding remarks. He has rightly asked my hon. Friend whether the regional hospital boards have been consulted and whether there has been contact between those in the regions, particularly in the industrial regions. However, I understood him to say later that the hospital authorities were opposed to the Instrument. According to what he has said, the hon. Member appears to have received a great deal of representation against the proposals embodied in the Instrument.
In my region, which is a highly industrial one, I have always tried to keep closely in touch with these matters,

and I have never failed to get representations over a very wide area on matters which affect both hospital and nursing administration. Over the years I have been very closely associated, though not in a professional capacity, with the nursing profession and all that goes with it. However, I am bound to say that I have not received any representations against this Instrument.
Therefore, I feel that I am on quite strong ground when I say that I think it would be a very retrograde step if the House assented to the Prayer. The educational qualification which is implicit in the Instrument has for a very long time been requested by the professional organisations serving the nursing profession, and I hope that the House will accede to the Instrument and reject the Prayer.

Mr. K. Robinson: Excluding mental nurses?

Dame Irene Ward: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my case, I will deal with that point. That is part of the reason why I am speaking. I would not dream of burking the issue which was put forward by the hon. Gentleman.
The General Nursing Council, the Royal College of Nurses and the Asso-tion of Hospital Matrons welcome the new Instrument and regret that for the first time in the nursing profession there has been a differentiation in the register. It is rather regrettable that in this professional service, which means so much to the hospital service and the country as a whole, it has taken from 1939 to 1960 to re-establish the position which obtained in 1939. The reason is that so many people accept the nursing profession as a vocation and do not always seek to take the trouble to ascertain what those who are concerned with nursing really want for themselves. Consequently, the responsible bodies in the nursing profession and those who speak for the profession very much regret the differentiation.
I have a plea and a proposal to make to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I want to make it clear that, as a first step, those speaking for the nursing profession want this Instrument put into operation. In addition, if I understand the position correctly—and


it is very difficult to be quite sure of the position if one is not in the profession —those who were responsible for negotiating with the Ministry of Health were under the impression that mental nurses would be included in the provisions of the Instrument. The Instrument does not come into effective operation until 1st July, 1962, so that there is quite a considerable period between its presentation and its operation.
I therefore suggest, to clear up the position, that those of us who are interested—and I hope that the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North will agree with me—will be allowed to take the appropriate professional bodies to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to discuss the possibility of including mental nurses. I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that those who are connected with the recruitment of mental nurses for the Health Service do not accept all that he said about educational qualifications being detrimental to recruiting.
I am not in a position to offer this as my own opinion. I only say that I have discussed this with those who are in a position to know, and they say that it has been an advantage in recruitment. Therefore, it seems to me that it might be a good idea if those who are interested in this matter were able to join together with those who represent the nurses professionally—and this includes mental and other nurses—and discuss with the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary the possibility of bringing mental nurses within the ambit of this Instrument.
I always believe that in matters of this kind, involving negotiations affecting many people—not only those in the profession, but patients as well—the negotiations should be conducted at the top. I think that it has been a source of regret to those who have been conducting these negotiations, and who feel very strongly on this matter of mental nurses, that it has not been possible to conduct the negotiations at the highest possible level.
I have had quite a lot to do with the Minister of Health and with the Ministry of Health, and it has seemed to me from time to time—and in a way I say this with regret—that it is much more difficult

to get to the top people in this Department than it is in some other Departments. I do not want to be unduly critical, but I notice that in many fields, when I am discussing matters of importance to those connected with the national work of this country, some Ministers always seem to be able to have a word with one about what is going on.
I am bound to say to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that I have gone into this matter as carefully as a non-professional can. I rang up my right hon. Friend the Minister and expressed some views on the matter, but I got not a line, not a word, not a comment, not an interview and not a telephone message. I think that that is rather sad and regrettable.
Like everyone else, I am proud of the nursing profession. I am proud of the work done and the services given by its members, and in the efforts made by the House and by those who represent them to meet their needs we ought always to have the very top advice and the top interest from the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary.
As I say, I do not want to go into the detail of this matter any more. I merely wish to say that I support the Instrument. I am, I think, empowered to say that the General Nursing Council, the General College of Nursing and the Association of Hospital Matrons support the rules, and I hope that the Instrument will be confirmed by the House. At any rate, I think that these bodies appreciate the point that has been made by the hon. Gentleman opposite about mental nurses.
I think that it would be a very good idea for the future of the profession, for the future of the standards that it wants to continue and for the improvement that it wants made in the whole of the nursing services for the benefit of the patients and of the hospital service that as soon as may be those interested should seek to see the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to find out whether it is possible to make any progress in the direction of covering mental nurses in the same way as other nurses and to make them feel that they are covered. That matter, of course, is rather worrying those who represent the nursing profession. It is feared that this differentiation may be detrimental to those whom we want to recruit to the mental nursing service.
I hope that we shall be able to find some way of making the profession one body. This, I am sure, would help the profession, the nurses themselves, and would help to staff the hospitals for the benefit of the nation, and all those who are willing and able to do so much to make our nursing service so valuable to the country.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. G. A. Pargiter: I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) that we want the nursing profession to be treated as a whole and treated with equal esteem. The hon. Lady welcomes the Nurses Rules. I cannot welcome them in the same context, because it seems to me that they will tend to do precisely the opposite to what we want.
Whether or not these are the correct educational qualifications is a matter into which I do not want to go. There would probably be a controversy on what are peculiarly the right educational qualifications for nurses. That nurses must have a certain standard of education is obvious if they are to take the examinations, which are not easy and which are essential for the profession.
My early experience of mental hospitals and of hospital management goes back to the 1930s. I have seen considerable changes since that time, and although I am not now so actively concerned in the matter I have watched those changes with considerable interest. I have seen mental hospitals change from gaol-like places to places for curative purposes. What alarms me is the failure of these rules to recognise those changes.
In those days that I remember, back in the 1930s, mental nurses were little more than janitors. The knowledge of modern drugs and things of that kind which have been developed, some of them as a result of the war and some of which have been enormously developed since the war, has brought mental illness into precisely the same category as physical illness. It is essential that this should be recognised. I do not think that the General Nursing Council recognises it. I am not at all sure that it is so forward in the feeling with regard to mental health, otherwise I do not see how it could have put forward this Instrument or persuaded the Minister to accept it.
Only last year, we had the Mental Health Act, which was to be the great lift forward of proper treatment of mental health. How will we get it if we create a second-class nursing profession for the mental health services? It is no good saying that we will have this method to start with, because everything else will go down the drain while we are building it up. The Minister should take back this Instrument and seriously reconsider it.
It may be that a lack of educational qualifications is a cause of wastage in nursing. I hope that we may have the figures of the extent to which that is true. What my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) has said is much more likely. All sorts of factors come into the question of wastage in the profession rather more, probably, than the educational qualification. It might become rather better in some respects in the great London teaching hospitals, and so on, which have no recruitment problem, if, perhaps, there were an educational qualification.
I have an idea that some people can get by in the London teaching hospitals, not necessarily because they have qualified, but because of the school which they have attended, or because a girl's father happened to train or be at that hospital, and all the things that go as part of the background by which certain people can get into certain hospitals. It may well be that the educational qualification might prevent some of them from getting in so easily. I should not be at all surprised if some of the failures we get in those hospitals might be those very people.

Mr. John Diamond: Surely my hon. Friend is not suggesting that nurses come on to the register by these methods, or that the question of a nurse being the daughter of a particular father would have the slightest relevance to passing the examination laid down by the General Nursing Council.

Mr. Pargiter: My hon. Friend has misinterpreted what I am saying.

Mr. Diamond: I am glad to hear it.

Mr. Pargiter: I am talking not of the qualification of the nurse, but the qualification for entry into the profession, which is entirely different to the qualification which she must have. Whether


this is the right standard or not, my view would be that it is desirable that there should be a general idea that they will have sufficient educational knowledge and background to be able to absorb the material which they must absorb and to pass the examinations. To that extent, I am not at all sure that this is the right Instrument.
To return to the question of mental nurses in the light of modern developments, in spite of what the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth has said there is considerable alarm already in the management of mental hospitals. Many of them are not yet aware of these rules. I am sure that when they become aware of them, the Minister will get a flood of protests about their exclusion. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will ask her right hon. and learned Friend the Minister to reconsider this aspect.
It would be a grave mistake for the Instrument to go through and for it to be left to be thought, as it will be, that mental nursing is second grade and is not regarded as being the equal of general nursing. To that extent, I am not able to support the Instrument in its present form.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. Forbes Hendry: I think that every hon. Member of this House, in his or her inner heart, wants these rules to be approved. We all want to see the general level of education in this country raised. From that point of view there should be a high entrance level of education in this tremendously important profession. We ought to welcome this Instrument, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen will not press the matter to a Division, if for no other reason than that half a loaf is better than no bread.
We ought to welcome the higher qualification in the nursing profession. I ask my hon. Friend to consider carefully what has been said on both sides of the House about mental nursing. I feel strongly about this, because mental nursing is tremendously handicapped by being regarded as the poor relation, or a sort of second-grade profession. I have heard that opinion expressed time and again. The standard of men and women entering the mental nursing profession is lower than it would be if the

feeling did not exist that mental health nursing is a sort of step-sister of the nursing profession.
The reverse should be the case because, while in medical and surgical nursing a nurse is trained to do something to or for the patient, in mental nursing a different attitude is required. One requires not a capacity for doing something physical, but a capacity for understanding the patient, and for living with the patient.
I should like to see an even higher qualification for mental nursing. We must get rid of the idea that a mental nurse is a sort of a drudge. She ought to be more skilled than the general nurse. I hope that my right hon. Friend will think very seriously about this.
I appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite not to press the matter to a Division, but to allow the Instrument to go through in its present form, especially if my hon. Friend gives an undertaking to consider the position of mental nurses and to introduce another Instrument laying down more suitable educational qualifications for mental nurses.

10.52 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I can understand the fears that were expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) about the difficulty of attracting nurses, but that is as far as I can go with him in his opposition to this Instrument.
Nurses, like any other professional body, have a right to be concerned about their status in this country, and I would give them all the backing I could in their fight for a proper status. I have the greatest admiration for the nursing profession in Britain, although it is those in Scotland whom I know best. I say to my hon. Friend who is afraid that this may lead to a shortage of nurses that the way to tackle the problem is not to say that we will ask for no educational qualifications at all, but to make it our job to ensure that the conditions and salaries are adequate to attract into this profession the type of woman we want.
The qualifications asked for are meagre indeed. Two passes are required at "O" level, one of them in English.


I would not want any young woman who had been educated in this country who could not get that minimum qualification to be responsible for nursing in any hospital. It is for that reason that I support this educational qualification.
I have only one reservation, not about the young people who are attracted into the profession from this country, but about the numbers who come from abroad, about whom my hon. Friend spoke. It may be very difficult for some of them to attain this qualification, and in those circumstances the Minister should be ready to consider the question of students who come here from certain overseas countries. Before 1st July, 1962, he has time to do something about that.
My last point concerns the exclusion of nurses who are working in mental hospitals. That is very bad. It will make it more difficult to attract young women into this form of nursing when they realise that their status will be regarded as something very much less than that of those who go into general nursing. The hon. Member for Aber-deensihire, West (Mr. Hendry) and I are now very busy in the Committee stage of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North; it seems to me that the great therapeutic value which patients in mental hospitals can get from their relationship with their nurses is of the greatest importance. We will have a much better chance of getting that deep understanding from someone who has been able at least to get two passes at "O" level.
I make the same plea as has been made by other speakers: I hope that the Minister will consider extending the qualification he is asking for in respect of general nurses to those who are going to do this most important work in the future—the work that has to be done in our mental hospitals.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Laurence Pavitt: There seems to be a wide measure of agreement among Members on both sides of the House on the question of the omission from the Instrument of those nurses who are engaged in nursing the mentally ill and the mentally defective. Indeed, the Instrument itself may be said to be mentally defective in that respect.

The hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), in a very thoughtful speech, raised the question of the reactions of the regional hospital boards and hospital management committees to these proposals. I have three or four pages of their reactions, from which it is clear that although the boards have a number of criticisms to make of the proposals, especially in regard to the kind of establishment that shall qualify as a teaching hospital—whether the number of beds shall be 100 or 300—no objection is voiced against the educational qualifications required, and in the memorandum of the Association of Hospital Management Committees the same theme is evident throughout. They have no objection to the major provisions; they are concerned mainly with the way in which the system will work out.
I want to confine my remarks to the serious omission of the nurses who cater for mental defectives. I regret that we had to take the step of moving this Prayer, because the rest of the Instrument makes some desirable provisions in the direction of raising the status of this important profession. But the injustice done to these extremely worthy people, who are tackling the difficult task of nursing in mental hospitals, warrants our asking the Minister to withdraw the Instrument. The only difference between the two sides of the House is as to the best way to remedy this defect. We ask the Minister to allow us to annul the Instrument now, so that he can introduce something more complete later.
Incidentally, I wish we could change the clumsy title from mental nurses to something like psychiatric nurses, and so take some supposed stigma from a worthy profession. Since the war there has been a considerable amount of enlightenment in the attitude towards mental illness and deficiency. We have broken down the barriers between physical and mental illness not only from the point of view of the nurses, the doctors and the medical profession generally but also in the fact that in recent years great advance has been made in educating the general public to understand sympathetically mental illness and to appreciate the value of domiciliary help for those people who are unfortunately mentally ill.
This Instrument breaks that down and puts back the clock, making a division


between ordinary general nursing and those nurses engaged in mental illness. Those nurses have a high sense of vocation and of devotion, and it is up to us to give them every possible encouragement rather than to put the clock back and to make it appear that they are a second-class type of nurse.
The position is even worse than in 1939. When this practice, which is being reinstituted, was waived in September, 1939, mental and ordinary nurses were pari passu; they were all graded exactly the same. Yet we are now reintroducing an educational qualification which will separate the sheep from the goats, as it were. This is the crux of the situation.
I suggest that at present the Ministry wastes a lot of money on training because of the withdrawal of students for a number of reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras. North (Mr. K. Robinson) made this point. Statistics showed that in 1957 there was a greater wastage among nurses dealing with mental deficiency than in general nursing. For example, those withdrawing after six months in the general female category amounted to 18·6 per cent., and in the male category 25·4 per cent., but in mental illness it was 30 per cent. and among those engaged in nursing mental deficiency it was 35·3 per cent. It appears that we have a larger wastage in mental categories, and I suggest that this Instrument will aggravate the position rather than assist to improve it.
Apart from the wastage, there is the effect on the service in general. The tutors do a certain amount of training and then are frustrated because they lose their students. The students who stay are perhaps held back because the initial standards on entry are such that they have fellow students who are not capable of absorbing the training being given. It is just as important for mental nurses as in general nursing that, as a starting point, there should be a satisfactory standard of education for entry to the profession.
The Report of the General Nursing Council up to 31st March, 1958, refers to a decrease in the number entering the mental categories. It says that the wastage during training remains excessive— 1,587 in mental nursing and 409 in mental

deficiency nursing, making a 72 per cent. wastage. The Report continues,
Such figures can allow for no complacency and again point to the need for careful selection of students; those training schools which have required a certain standard to be met have already proved that such a policy attracts more recruits of the right calibre.
It is not good enough to say that an educational entrance test may be applied at the option of the hospital concerned, because that is the position at the moment; the General Nursing Council offers specimen papers for those hospitals which care to give a test. In practice, only 44 mental hospitals and 11 mental deficiency hospitals have taken advantage of the facilities offered.
I suggest that the question of status and public relations is involved in replacing the mental categories alongside the general standards of nursing. As my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North said, the Nursing Times wrote that
patients and would-be candidates may think the training offered is second best.
The Minister will probably agree that this is a long-term aim and that there should be parity eventually, but he may be reluctant to introduce it at this time. I suggest that this is the time, when the climate of opinion is conditioned by last year's Mental Health Act and when interest is going in this direction, to give this parity to the mental nurses and those nursing mental deficiency. If the Instrument is passed tonight, we shall only have to come back later with an amendment.
Why not introduce a completely new Instrument straight away, as my hon. Friends and I desire? The differentiation may lead to many anomalies later on in post-registration training, integrated training for admission to different parts of the Register and other experimental schemes, which the Parliamentary Secretary will know have already been passed by the Minister. These plans would be complicated as a result of this Instrument.
My plea is that the Instrument should be annulled. The Government should seek to introduce a Measure which gives credit to the devoted people who serve mental illness, as devotedly as the general nursing people serve physical illness.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. Charles A. Howell: I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us what the object of the Instrument is. Is it to get more nurses? If that is the object, I hope that, if it is eventually found to be a failure, either the hon. Lady or her right hon. and learned Friend will have the courage to come to the House and say that it has been proved to be a failure and that it is desired to amend or withdraw it.
Irrespective of what any hon. Member on either side of the House says, I am not interested in the qualifications of recruits. I am interested in the qualifications of trained nurses. I have tabled Questions from time to time asking about recruitment. On every occasion I have been told that recruitment has decreased. Where is the evidence that the Instrument will result in an increase?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): indicated dissent.

Mr. Howell: If the hon. Lady reads the Official Report, she will find that I am right. The possession of the G.C.E. will not enable a girl to qualify as a nurse. She must have far more about her than ability to pass these educational tests.

Miss Herbison: Of course she must.

Mr. Howell: I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) agrees with me. I have some knowledge of the nursing profession. I want to declare my interest. Since the National Health Service Act, 1948, I have been the chairman of a training hospital. We were a fever and T.B. training hospital. We are losing our status on both counts, due to the Ministry's idea that a hospital must have 200 patients per day before it can qualify to be a teaching hospital.

Mr. K. Robinson: Three hundred.

Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) tells me that it is 300. In any event, it is a high figure. I am convinced from my own knowledge, meagre as it may be, that only about four hospitals in England will fall into that category. As a result, nurses will be faced with the prospect of travelling so far that

they will not come forward. The number of recruits will fall, and continue to fall.
My hospital has been designated as a pupil training hospital. We have any amount of vacancies. The Parliamentary Secretary and I represent divisions of Birmingham. We have a very excellent teaching hospital there. I will guarantee that it has a waiting list today.

Miss Pitt: indicated assent.

Mr. Howell: It has a waiting list. The matron of a hospital in the group which I serve was a trainee at the North Middlesex Hospital. The hospital is very proud of that. The trouble with these rules is that they are made by matrons of hospitals which have waiting lists. They have not the faintest idea of the struggles of their fellow matrons in other hospitals which cannot get nurses.
There must be many hon. Members who live in localities where there are empty beds, and even wards which have been closed, in hospitals. This is due entirely to the shortage of nurses. Of course, there is a wastage of trainees. Where is there not such a shortage? There is a wastage in the police force. All recruits do not finish the 13 weeks at the training colleges. Even if they do, as soon as they get on to beats and shift work, due to pressure from their wives because it is shift work or a seven day a week job, they leave. It is an expensive job to train a policeman today. It is an expensive job to train a nurse, but that is one of the costs which we must bear.
As I say, I am not concerned with the standard of the qualification when a girl enters a pupil training school; my concern is to get fully-qualified girls at the end of the course. Every matron sets her own standard, and the law of supply and demand comes into it. I hate to say so, but I believe that many matrons turn their hospitals into snob training schools. I know of many cases where the daughters of, aldermen, councillors, doctors and the like have been able to get into these snob training schools while the working man's daughter, with a G.C.E. qualification, has been refused and has had to go elsewhere for her training.
I spoke to a matron who has now left the service for a better-paid job somewhere else. She raised the question of


the interim period between the school-leaving age and the age for entry to the training school. Girls leave school at 16, but they cannot enter the training school until they are 18. When they leave school, where do they go? They go into offices, where there is the 5-day week, music while they work, canteen facilities, and other amenities that are not available in hospitals. As a result, they get accustomed to higher earnings and more congenial conditions, and we do not get them recruiting at age 18—

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: This is one of the things that, had I spoken in the debate, I should have mentioned, but the fact that the hon. Gentleman has just referred to it gives me an opportunity. In recent years, the General Nursing Council has encouraged the setting up of cadet nursing schemes—

Mr. K. Robinson: It does not encourage the scheme.

Mr. Lewis: Very well, it is developing in spite of the Council. I hope that my right hon. Friend will get the Council to come right behind the setting up of cadet nursing schools, because it is very important that the gap between leaving school and entering the training school should be bridged. If it is not bridged then, as the hon. Gentleman says, we shall not get the recruits.

Mr. Howell: That was a very enjoyable, if somewhat lengthy intervention, but the hon. Member made a point that I was obviously going to make, which is how the Ministry could bridge that gap.
I am seriously perturbed by the lack of recruits. It does not matter if 50 per cent. of the recruits fall by the wayside before they qualify as long as there ire enough in the other 50 per cent. If 100 start and 50 per cent. drop away, there are still 50 trained nurses at the end of the training, but if the qualifications we require are such that we get only 50 entrants in the first place, and there is that amount of wastage, we will not get our wards and our hospitals staffed.
Anyone who, as I do, goes round the hospitals every week will be told by matrons that there is a shortage of domestic staff. As a result, that work also falls on the nurses. That is the

cause of some of the wastage; to learn to be nurses these girls have to become domestics. If we do not make the work interesting and congenial, they will give up.
Again, I say that my concern is with recruitment. My hon. Friends may well be right in saying that before girls enter this wonderful profession—and I give it every credit—they should have a high standard of qualification, but if we find that that is not successful, I hope that the hon. Lady and her right hon. Friend will look again at this matter and say that it is not only the highly-educated person who can come into the profession.
I am reminded of the story—I have read it several times in different forms— of the man who left school when he was about nine years old. He started selling things, became a barrow boy, went into business, and eventually became a millionaire. He could not even sign his name to a cheque. Someone said to him, "Just imagine what you might have done if you had been educated!".
Frankly, I do not have these qualifications. Having left school, an elementary school, at the age of 13, I could not possibly have them. There might be a few vacancies, at least on this side of the House, if hon. Members had to have these qualifications. However, I do not believe that the mere fact that one does not have a certificate means that one does not have an agile brain and ability to learn sufficient about teaching, provided that one has a good sister-tutor, to become a State-registered nurse. There is such a shortage of nurses that nothing should be put in the way of recruiting suitable girls, irrespective of educational qualifications.

11.16 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): First, I must tell the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) that I thought that he moved the Prayer with great sincerity and in a very reasonable way, showing his undoubted experience of this subject and interest in not only nurses, but those who receive the services of nurses. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Howell)—after a series of speeches on the subject—asked me what these rules were all about and I will try briefly to explain.
The Nurses (Amendment) Rules, Approval Instrument, 1960, which is the subject of the debate, approves rules made by the General Nursing Council for England and Wales in exercise of the powers conferred on it by Section 3 of the Nurses Act, 1957. The effect of these rules is to amend by substitution Rule 10 of the Nurses Rules, 1951.
The object of the change is to ensure that as from 1st July, 1962, an applicant shall not be admitted to a preliminary training school course of an approved training institution for registered general nurses, or for registered sick children's nurses, or for registered fever nurses unless she holds the stated minimum educational qualification — expressed generally in terms of the General Certificate of Education subjects at Ordinary Level—or has passed an educational entrance test set by the Council.
The General Nursing Council is the authority charged by Statute—the same Nurses Act, 1957—to make rules for regulating the admission to the Register of Nurses. Under the Act, these rules must contain provisions requiring that persons admitted to the register shall have undergone the training in nursing which is prescribed by the Council.
The rules of the General Nursing Council do not come into operation unless and until they are approved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health, who is thus able to consider them in all their aspects and to consult other interests about them as may appear to him to be necessary before he gives his approval.
I have been asked about consultations and I can say that in the present instance the Minister's consultations extended over a period of a year and that the bodies who were consulted included all the regional hospital boards, the Teaching Hospitals Association and the Association of Hospital Management Committees.
The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North suggested that these decisions were largely based on the experience of London matrons, but, in fact, the elected members of the General Nursing Council are representative of all parts of the country, as he will see if he refreshes his memory by looking at the Schedule to the Nurses Act.
It is generally felt that re-introduction of minimum educational standards for nursing is desirable. We are able now to consider this change because of the improvement in recruiting. I have with me an enormous statistical note, but I doubt whether time will permit me to give to the House. I have answered Questions recently and have shown the improvement in all branches of the nursing profession. That is one of the reasons why we are able to bring these rules forward now.
Another is the need to cut down wastage. The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North and the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) queried this wastage and asked me whether I could say how much of it was due to girls not having the necessary educational background. A recent inquiry indicated that in students with an educational qualification the wastage was substantially less than in students without. I cannot give completely accurate figures, because I doubt whether wastage is analysed in this way, and I know from my own experience and from talking with matrons that very often wastage can only be described under the one heading "personal reasons".
That is what the girls say when they leave the job, and it is not until long afterwards that somebody, perhaps by chance, finds out what those personal reasons really were. However, in many instances it is, in fact, the case that they have not an adequate educational background.
Another of the reasons why we can bring forward the change is that there are more 18-year-olds available. We are feeling the effects of the "bulge"—that inelegant word—in the nursing profession; more girls are available. Also, the assistant nurse grade and the auxiliary grades are available for those who wish to work in this sphere but perhaps have not the ability to undertake the full responsibilities of the State-registered nurse.
As the hon. Gentleman said in opening, the educational standard is not a new measure. We seek to re-establish it. There was a minimum educational qualification before the war, but it was abolished on the outbreak of war in 1939.
Thus, the new rules do not break fresh ground, but are aimed at recovering lost ground.
By no stretch of imagination can the educational standard be regarded as unduly high, as the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said. The General Nursing Council has, with expert advice, devised a special test to bring out whether a student is suitable for training. Perhaps, in parentheses, I may say that I have tried the practice test which I found among the papers in connection with the rules, and I am deligted to say that I passed. I did not take too long about it, which I think is fairly good, because the older one gets the slower one's reaction becomes to such psychological tests. I was happy that I passed the test. I should think that most girls with a background such as mine could pass it.
Exemption from this test can be secured in a variety of ways, including only two passes at O level in the G.C.E., one of which must be in English or the Welsh language, together with evidence of satisfactory study in at least five other subjects. The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North asked me about girls who come here from other countries and whose command of the English language may not be so good. The General Nursing Council is preparing a special test suitable for those students whose mother tongue is not English.
There is no question of this country going in advance of others with the rules we now put forward. One of the points made by the General Nursing Council in support of its new rules was that in 1957 of 35 member-countries of the International Council of Nurses only three had no minimum basic educational test for entry to training. The hon. Gentleman said we were one of the few advanced countries. I must disillusion him a little. The three countries which have no such test are Great Britain, Luxembourg and Northern Rhodesia.
One of the main avowed objects of the new rules and one that appeals forcibly to my right hon. and learned Friend is to cut down the wastage of students at a later stage by ensuring a better selection at the start. This is a much more

sensible and less wasteful way of proceeding than allowing unsuitable students to embark on the course and then losing them later.
Those unable to qualify as student nurses will not necessarily be debarred from nursing if they have a vocation for it, for they may well be suited to become enrolled assistant nurses or nursing auxiliaries, of whom we need more to relieve trained nurses and midwives on jobs which do not require their full skill.
One part of the overall criticism, and a large part, which has come from both sides of the House tonight has been that the requirement has not been made to extend to the mental and mental deficiency parts of the register. It is, however, my right hon. and learned Friend's desire and policy to encourage any measure designed to improve standards of nurse training in all types of hospital. The reason for the restriction in the rule approved in the Statutory Instrument is that the staffing situation in the psychiatric hospitals is not yet sufficiently established to make it right for my right hon. and learned Friend to reach a decision, now, that the educational requirement shall become compulsory in them on 1st July, 1962, as it will in other hospitals. Where they are prepared to do so, it is open to psychiatric hospitals, like others, to apply the educational requirements to their student nurse entry straightaway, and the Minister would be very glad to see as many as possible do so.
The General Nursing Council has stated that it has reluctantly agreed to accept the Minister's decision, since it does not wish to delay introduction of a minimum educational standard to the other parts of the register, and it leaves no room for doubt as to its own views, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne-mouth (Dame Irene Ward) said. But in the interest of early publicity, it has confined its rule to applicants for admission as student nurses to an approved training institution for registered general nurses, or for registered sick children's nurses, or for registered fever nurses.
The staffing of mental and mental deficiency hospitals has given cause for concern from the beginning of the National Health Service, and although in the earlier years of the Service there was some increase in the total nursing


staff in these hospitals there was also a corresponding increase in the degree of overcrowding of wards, so that the staff-patient ratio for the country as a whole remained almost unchanged. The numbers of trained nurses in mental and mental deficiency hospitals steadily declined from 1953 to 1958, and although there was a small increase in 1959, the total increase between 1949 and 1959 was only 1,204—under 9 per cent.— whereas the total number of trained nurses in other hospitals increased by 10,789—over 38 per cent.
My right hon. and learned Friend's view is that because of the still difficult, though gradually improving, staffing position in psychiatric hospitals it is prudent that for the mental part of the register the new conditions of entry to training should be tried out voluntarily before he can commit himself to their being mandatory. The General Nursing Council has expressed the hope that the Minister will be able, on the basis of experience provided by the hospitals, voluntarily to approve such an extension before the rule takes effect.
It is only on the practical ground of the staffing position that it has been considered necessary at the present time to distinguish between psychiatric and other hospitals; but the Minister has assured the Genera! Nursing Council and various correspondents that he intends to keep the matter under close review in the light of the experience gained by hospital authorities and the General Nursing Council of the way in which the new educational standard works in practice, including experience gained by psychiatric hosptials in applying the new standard on a voluntary basis. His review of the position will be continuous, and a

fresh assessment of the position in the psychiatric hospitals will not necessarily be postponed until after 1st July, 1962.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tyne-mouth asked if she might bring the appropriate bodies to discuss this matter with the Minister and myself. My right hon. and learned Friend and I are always available to Members of the House and to deputations. Indeed, we seem to spend a large part of our time doing so. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend would be prepared to consider this request, though I would ask that it be made not too early. Let us have a little experience of the move that we are now making before we consider further these psychiatric hospitals.
I hope I have shown that this change has not been introduced without full consideration and consultation. I do not think that it is premature, as was suggested on the benches opposite. We are confident we can achieve this change by 1962 and that it will then be possible to apply compulsion in general hospitals without detriment to staffing. We do not yet feel the same degree of confidence about mental hospital staffing, which is the reason why it is not included in this rule, but we will keep it under review as I have promised.
In the meantime, I think that we should encourage all hospitals able to do so to use these guides in recruiting student nurses, and I am sure that this will help the profession.

It being half-past Eleven, Mr. SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 95A (Statutory Instruments, amp;c. (procedure)).

Question negatived.

CANNOCK CHASE (DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Julian Snow: In raising in the House tonight the matter of Cannock Chase, I do not think that I need elaborate the vital importance of retaining as far as possible the amenity qualities of this area of outstanding natural beauty in the Midlands. There are very few amenities of great natural beauty left in the Midlands for the benefit of the workers and the populace as a whole.
The fact of the matter is that Cannock Chase, historically of importance and important from the point of view of natural history, is something which the working population of the Midlands regard as a place to which to escape from the noise and the dust of the great productive areas of that part of the country.
My attention was drawn to the further threat to Cannock Chase by the organisation known as the Association of Friends of Cannock Chase and, subsequently, by the Rugeley District Field Club, because they suddenly realised that a further 20 acres of land was about to be the subject of quarry processes in the near future.
I raised this matter on 29th March with the Parliamentary Secretary and pointed out to him that this further spoliation of Cannock Chase was causing considerable local concern. In his reply, the Parliamentary Secretary said that when the option was given to the company in question in 1951 it had been given by the Lichfield Rural District Council in that year because
it knew this area was likely to be designated as of outstanding natural beauty, and it imposed suitable conditions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1960; Vol. 620, c. 1116.]
In point of fact, the original option was given in 1948, and when it was given there was a condition that working would have to start within three years. It did not, and that is why the company in question applied for a renewal, which it got. This renewal was up to 1968, but —and I emphasise this point—without

this particular condition that work should start within three years.
This is a highly important point in the argument which I wish to deploy. Before I go any further I want to make it quite clear that nothing I say tonight should be construed as critical of the planning authority or of the Lichfield Rural District Council. On the contrary, since I took up the matter with the Parliamentary Secretary I have consulted both authorities. Both have been helpful and I am most impressed with the highly complex nature of the problem as a whole.
When I addressed certain questions to the Clerk of the Lichfield Rural District Council, he wrote to me pointing out that in 1934 there had been a proposal to allot not just 20 acres but 145 acres for the purposes of quarrying in the area. That point did not strike me then as, anyway, 1934 was a long time ago. I was particularly worried about the 20 acres which had been drawn to my attention.
Further information was given to me by the clerk of the council to the effect that it was preferable, for instance, to use Cannock Chase as a source of quarrying road material rather than to use good agricultural land, and that, in any case, the superior authority, the Staffordshire County Council, was somewhat bound by the Report of the Advisory Committee on Sand and Gravel which was produced in 1948. That Report included a proposed service area for extracting this material, and that 20 acres came into that service area.
The county planning officer, to whom I also addressed questions, pointed out to me that the county planning authority had reluctantly agreed to the quarry being started although in the immediate vicinity of the area the authority had opposed further applications for quarrying because they came within an area of 29 square miles which had been recommended by the National Parks Commission as a conservation area. This is relevant because the 20 acres with which I am concerned is no more than about two miles from a case in Rugeley which had been successfully opposed by the planning authority. There is a record of these applications for development and exploitation on Cannock Chase being rejected by the Minister himself.
The county planning officer also pointed out to me that one had to take into account the proposed Cannock Chase service area for gravel and sand and the needs which had been established by the Advisory Committee to which I have referred. It was at that point that I began to worry about the 1934 proposal to permit quarrying of a total of 145 acres.
By courtesy of the Parliamentary Secretary, I went to his Ministry's library and examined the designation map which is attached to the Staffordshire County Development Plan. Sure enough, I found on the designation map a large area which, so far as I could calculate— I am subject to correction—would probably allow the 145 acres.
One of the arguments which has been suggested to me by the county planning officer is that the powers which the Minister has under Sections 21 and 22 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, to revoke options once given if circumstances justify such revocation would be costly to put into operation in this case. He suggested in a letter to me that the value of the material which could be extracted from the area had become enhanced by the proposal to establish the motorway. I am not certain to which motorway he was referring, but I suspect that it would be the Yorkshire motorway.
If that is so, there are two grounds on which I do not understand the argument. The first is that since the renewed option was given in 1952 and since the proposal for the motorway was not announced publicly until 1958, I do not understand why there should be any question of compensating on the basis of enhanced value of the material to be extracted. The second point is that even if there is a total of 145 acres which is in danger—this in itself will be viewed with grave alarm and sadness by people in the Midlands—I do not think that the public as a whole knew that such a proposal was afoot.
I am told by the leader of the Labour group on the Staffordshire County Council that he is given to understand that some twenty applications for further quarrying rights on Cannock Chase which are about to be considered may be applications for quarrying rights within the designated area which I believe to be 145 acres.
In short, I believe that this is probably an administrative tangle in the sense that an old proposal was embodied in the Staffordshire County Development Plan, that the option given on a renewal basis in 1952 was given without the condition that it should be started within three years and that, in any event, five years later this whole area was designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty.
I believe that there is a case for the Minister to consider the revocation powers under Sections 21 and 22. I do not believe that Section 22, which refers to compensation in the event of revocation, can possibly take into account the enhanced value of the material being extracted, and I think that the Minister should have a look at this with a view to getting the planning authority to initiate revocation.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) is present. I know that she feels strongly about this, and I think that the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) may have something to say. The Parliamentary Secre-retary should not under-estimate the importance of this amenity to the people in the industrial Midlands, and something should be done to see that this further quarrying and spoliation does not take place.

11.40 p.m.

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: Everyone living in what is ungracefully called the West Midlands conurbation will be grateful to the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) for bringing up this matter, and for the diligence with which he has pursued his researches.
Those connected with the area are conscious of the great pressure there is to encroach on the green belt, and the difficulty of preserving these "lungs" which are so vital to the healthy growth of such an area. Cannock Chase was preserved for the public largely by the efforts of a previous Member of Parliament for Walsall, and the distinguished son of that city, Alderman J. A. Leckie. I therefore take the opportunity of supporting the eloquent plea made by the hon. Gentleman that this area should be preserved for the benefit and enjoyment of the public.

11.41 p.m.

Miss Jennie Lee: I hope that this debate will suffice to bring to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary, and through him the Minister, the fact that there is considerable feeling about preserving the Chase. This is not the first time that this matter has been raised in the House. Before and during the war on innumerable occasions very good arguments were put forward why there should not be encroachment on the Chase. Again and again during the war efforts were made to broaden the area to be used for military purposes.
People in the area, and their representatives, were prepared to accept some encroachment if it could be proved that it was necessary, in the interests of winning the war, to restrict these essential "lungs" of the population of the Midlands. We continually pointed out that there were remote areas where military training could be carried out, and which it would be fairer to use than usurping this part of the Midlands.
We recognise that roads have to be built and that quarrying has to be carried out, but we ask the Minister to remember when we ask him to support new industries in this area—particularly in the Wednesfield area, which I have been told is one of low employment into which new industries could be brought— that to the crowded industrial areas round Birmingham, like Wolverhampton, Wal-sall, Lichfield, and others, this area of the Chase is a precious heritage.
We know that a busy Ministry with claims on it from every part of the country might not be fully aware of how important this is. We ask the Minister to find out if this is a life and death necessity; to find out if existing quarries could not be used or developed; and to satisfy us that the Ministry, like ourselves, and like the population of these areas, understands that industry is becoming noisier in these parts. The men down the mines cutting coal are coming under increasing pressure, and have to put up with increasing noise. The more we have this background of industry the more essential it is that the beauty and peace of the Chase should be preserved and left undisturbed from the squalor inseparable from the development of the quarrying industry.

11.45 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I doubt whether this case could have been put with more moderation and ingenuity and eloquence than by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid), the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) and the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee). Cannock Chase needs no recommendation. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty, and has been designated as such by my right hon. Friend. The case for the protection of that area has been admirably put.
If there is one criticism to make of the case as it has been put it would be that it has necessarily been somewhat one-sided. That is bound to be so in view of the nature of the plea that has been made. My job is to put the position in perspective, and to put the other side of the argument into the scales. I am sure that the hon. Members value extremely highly the full employment in their areas. Industrial necessity requires ample supplies of sand and gravel. I am not able to assure the hon. Lady that sand and gravel is a matter of life and death necessity; that would be an exaggeration. But it is a matter of employment necessity, and I know that she recognises that.
It follows that we have to dig sand and gravel where it is found. The hon. Lady was very persuasive during the war in her efforts to get military training moved from this natural "lung" but military training is more mobile than sand and gravel. This area is rich in sand and gravel and its working cannot just be moved to other areas which are equally rich without the community as a whole paying a disproportionate price. One of the major elements in the case of sand and gravel is the transport cost, and there is an optimum radius—between 15 and 20 miles—above which the cost of obtaining sand and gravel and, therefore, the cost of work in which it is employed, rises rapidly. This is a community cost, which has to be measured against the amenity cost.
The hon. Lady referred to a busy Ministry perhaps not having time to consider the merits of each side of the case.


In fact, the Ministry has been extremely well served by the Advisory Committee on Sand and Gravel, to which the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth referred, which issued a number of voluminous and thorough Reports. The terms of reference of this Committee included the need to study the protection of amenities in all its recommendations, and I hope to give some evidence that it has done so. This Committee published books on every part of the United Kingdom, and the book it published in 1950 contained Parts III and IV, which covered the Trent Valley and the West Midlands. That indicates the degree of detail into which the Committee went.
It considered the whole country in terms of service areas, one of which is named the Cannock Chase Service Area. On pages 68 and 69 of its Report the Committee sought to assess the need for sand and gravel. I hope that hon. Members will realise that I am leading up to meeting their case in full, but I must introduce the whole picture. The Committee sought to measure the demand for sand and gravel in the Cannock Chase area over the next 50 years, because its remit required it so to do, and it decided that there would be a demand for 18 million cubic yards in that area. In fact, the demand that has occurred since 1950 shows that its estimate was on the modest side. Demand is running higher than it estimated. There is no comfort there.
It went into the question of where this sand and gravel could be found within the Cannock Chase Service Area and it said that, broadly, there was a choice. On the one hand there were the deposits on Cannock Chase itself. These deposits are thick and deep and they lie on land which has great amenity value and natural beauty but no agricultural value. As I will explain more fully in a moment, these deposits on Cannock Chase are dry deposits which can be dug in a dry manner.
The alternative is to go to the sand and gravel bed on the Trent and Tame confluence, also within the Cannock Chase Service Area, and to dig the sand and gravel there. That would involve attacking thin seams of sand and gravel, it would involve wet working and it would involve attacking land of great agricultural value.
That is the balance which had to be considered. It was a clear choice, and there were merits and demerits in both of the alternative areas. I want to stress the importance of the dry characteristics of the workings on the Cannock Chase area. Hon. Members will appreciate that if workings to obtain sand and gravel are wet, the result is to leave a large number of what are described as lagoons dotted all over the working area.

Mr. Snow: One already exists.

Sir K. Joseph: I will come to that point in a moment.
If lagoons are left, it is pure luck whether sufficient spoil, ash or other material can be found to fill them. It is doubtful whether the aqueous area which would be involved in lagoons were the Trent and Tame confluence choice to be made could conceivably be filled. Secondly, the choice of a wet-working area leaves the land permanently damaged, whereas if the works are dry, with modern methods of restoration there is every reason to expect that the results will not be observable after the period of working has ended.
I would also point out the difference in the depth of seam between the two alternatives. In the Cannock Chase area of deposit the seam is extremely deep. Consequently, a great deal of sand and gravel could be dug for every square yard of surface that has to be worked. On the Trent and Tame confluence the seam is very thin. The result is that if the Cannock Chase area were used the area concerned need be only one-third of the size of that which would have to be worked if the Trent and Tame confluence, with its thin seams, were chosen.
We thus have a choice between two areas. In the Cannock Chase area the working will be dry and therefore temporary. The land can be restored and there is no loss of agricultural land. There is, however, grave temporary damage to natural beauty. Only 280 acres would be needed in order to produce 18 million cubic yards. On the other hand, in the Trent and Tame confluence area there would be wet working, permanent loss of land in lagoons, permanent loss of agricultural land of high value but no loss of beauty. In the Trent and Tame confluence area there would be a loss by working not of 280


acres temporarily but of 900 acres permanently. That is the balance which has to be measured, and the Advisory Committee had no doubt what it should recommend. On page 69 we read:
Notwithstanding the damage to amenity interests which further workings in Cannock Chase must inevitably cause, and despite the known intensity of public feeling in regard to further intrusions upon this area, we are in no doubt that the principles of good planning point firmly towards the further temporary damage to the amenities inseparable from workings on the deep, dry deposits on Cannock Chase, rather than to the irreparable loss to the nation's agricultural estate which would be caused by the creation of lagoons over several hundred acres of the high quality farm land overlying the terrace gravels to the west of the Tame-Trent confluence.
It was that strong recommendation which was accepted, albeit reluctantly, by the Staffordshire County Council. As a result, in its development plan it zoned a large area, considerably larger than the 20 acres which we are discussing tonight, for sand and gravel working, and it has applied to these 20 acres, which we are discussing, reinstatement conditions.
I can now assure the House that much more is known about reinstatement than was known even a few years ago. There is no doubt that in these 28 acres of heathland the result after working will not be noticeably different from what it is now. The damage to amenity is temporary during the working.
The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth intervened while I was talking and said that there was wet working in the immediate area. I quite understand that he has formed that impression, but the fact is the the Rugely gravel pit, which is working already in the area, has a pond at its bottom for the sand and gravel to be washed. It is an artificial pond created by the firm which is working the area. It is not a sign that the gravel working itself is wet.

Mr. Snow: I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for giving away. He may call it a pond. All I can say is that it seems to be a very large area which looks like a battlefield. I have in my hands an opinion, which is relatively objective, that existing properties which are being worked on the Chase are sufficient to meet all foreseeable requirements. If I hand this document to the hon. Gentleman, will he have it examined?

Sir K. Joseph: I will certainly have it examined, but I must assure the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth, both from the Advisory Committee's Report and from the report of the Ministry's own representatives, that these are dry workings. They are regarded as such by the Staffordshire County Council. The pond is artificial, although there may be a very sticky bottom, because of the washing of sand. This does not affect the fact that restoration will be complete; the contours will be altered only slightly.
It is true, as the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth said, that my right hon. Friend has dismissed an appeal for permission to work gravel near this area. That was an appeal to carry out gravel workings in a hillside outside the zone I have referred to. That would have gravely harmed the landscape— much more gravely than this property.
It is not true, however, that twenty new applications are now pending for gravel working in this designated area. My information is that six inquiries have been received, all since the publicity given by the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth to this particular area and to the possibility of more demand for gravel because of the motorway. They are six inquiries, not formal applications. There are six. not twenty.
The working which we are discussing lies on the perimeter of a saucer-shaped plateau which is almost entirely surrounded by woodlands. As a result, this gravel site is visible only from the perimeter of the saucer and is more or less completely invisible from areas beyond, because it is not overlooked by any higher land and because of the enclosing woodlands. There is limited access to this area already because, as the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth will know, there is a rifle range immediately adjacent.
It is, so far as I know, not the wish of either of the local authorities concerned to revoke the planning permission that they have given. If either did wish to revoke, compensation would be payable at market value. Market value takes into account the current demand for the resources of the area. Therefore, it is possible that, if market value were paid,


the potential demand arising from the motorway would have to be taken into account.
I hope that I have been able to show hon. Members, despite the undoubted need of this area of great national beauty, that the effect of the working will be temporary. Because of the location, it will scarcely intrude itself upon people using the area, because it is screened by woodlands and not overlooked by higher land. I hope that I have convinced hon. Members that we were right to choose this temporary, smaller area—which is a dry-working area, causing no damage to agricultural land—rather than a larger area which is wet-working, therefore causing permanent damage, and of high agricultural value.
In the circumstances, there was no choice for the local authorities but to accept the advice given by the Advisory Committee which has studied this problem so closely. I deeply regret that the conflicting demands of industry and amenity—on which depend, on the one hand, the employment and, on the other hand, the pleasure of the population— has led to this dilemma, but I cannot see that as a result of balancing these various interests it will be proper for my right hon. Friend to intervene in any way.

Mr. Snow: The Parliamentary Secretary will hear about this again.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twelve o'clock.